(Ed: This is a teaching story given to me by my late Taoist master. It is a true story and the Cloud Walk is an actual practice for our Dan Tao school. )

During World War II, when the Chinese army were fleeting the relentless bombing by the Japanese Air Force. The army of 50,000 soldiers would marched from Nanking to Seczhen over some of the highest mountain passes.

Marching along with my unit, I was glad that all the years of my Taiji and Qigong training allowed me to keep up with heart breaking pace.

" Lieutenant, there is an old man struggling behind us, may be we can flag a jeep to give him a ride." My attaché pointed back.

I drop back to the old man who had a strange crab-like gait, a forward and backward swaying steps.

" Old man, would you like to ride on a jeep. This is a hard climb up the mountain." I told him and knew that he could not have survive the march.

" I will be the first one getting to the top." He replied.

" Then at least let us take your bundle." I pointed to the bundle that he carried on the end of a stick.

He adjusted the stick slightly on his shoulder and replied, " you want my life ! Never."

I sighed. Another war crazed victim. Shaking my head, I rejoined my unit. The old man would probably die along the way.

Then all thoughts vanished as we begun our ascend up the mountain. Its peak disappeared in the clouds. As the air became thinner with the higher altitude, each breath cut the lungs like a blade. The numbing repetition of step after step. And you could never stop. Once stop, the overwhelming fatigue would lure you to eternal sleep.

After a 14 hours march, we finally halted for the night. Too tired to set up tend, we just chewed a handful of raw rice and collapsed into a deep coma.

In the morning, many of the soldiers never woke up. Even in their eternal sleep, their faces were racked with pains. Some had tears streaking down their faces like the early morning dews on blades of grass. There were no burial for them.

Then the numbing march up the Kunnlun Mountain resumed again.

After three days, our unit was one of the first to reach the peak. I was exuberant that all of my men had made it to the top. I had personally promised their family that I would get them through no matter what happens.

" Aha, took you long enough." Someone said.

I turned around and saw the old man resting under an old pine. He looked refreshed and well rested and apparently, he had been there for quite sometime.

I realized that I have met a great Taoist master. I begged him to give us instruction.

" please old reverence, will you teach us your walk? We still have a long journey ahead of us."

" you all walked in such rigidity that each step depletes your vitality." He commented.

" …Gathering the yin and forward with the yang." He chanted the song of the Cloud Walk.

" The Cloud Walk’s secret lies in…Yin conserves and Yang expands. Never walk in a straight line." He explained.

" But how did you get ahead of us? You were walking so slowly." I asked.

" That is quite simple, I walk in my sleep. While most people could only walk a limited time. I am tireless and can walk day and night without rest. For the Cloud Walk is my form of resting. And the bundle that sways behind my stick conserved the momentum of my movement." He replied.

I wanted to give him an army blanked but all he took was a canteen of water, as he drifted away into the mist.

After a month, our unit arrived safely in Seczhen.

Forty years later, my teacher told me this story as he taught me the Cloud Walk.
 
 

Walk like the wind,

sit like a bell,

stand like a tree,

and sleep like a bow.

Footnotes: A word of caution: The actual instruction of the Cloud Walk has to be taught in heart to heart, face to face live transmission. So I have deleted some of the crucial aspects of the instruction from this teaching stories. I considered them the jewels from my teachers and I am sharing with you to give the students of the Tao a taste of the ordinary and extraordinary practice of Qigong and Taiji Quan.

Too often I have received emails from interested students who wanting and wandering whether there is video or online instruction on our Dan Tao Qigong or Dragon Taiji practice. The sad truth is that most of our Dan Tao practice required a direct transmission from one living master to their students. As my Sifu always told me that the lamp of transmission is as tenuous as walking from heel to toe—from one generation to another—if the link is broken, then the teaching is gone. Any attempt to secure it in video or in book form risked the teaching being corrupted and diluted.

This I have often struggle with the great responsibility to bear the burden of our lineage transmission of Qigong, Taiji and Taiyin. I have taught in New York City for almost twenty years and so far I have only trained a handful of teachers who can transmitted the teaching. Perhaps that is the spirit of the Tao, to work in hidden obscurity with only a small group of students—for a Taoist master has no need of fame, wealth and power. It is enough to walk like the cloud in the great freedom of this life. Living in great freedom and joy like a turtle in the mud.

So this online medium is my way of sharing with the world and staying in the mud. Being a Buddhist myself, the compassion vow of liberating all sentient being propel me to shine a light in the chaos and the New Age bazaar of commercial teachers and self pro-claimed guru. May this Cloud Walk teaching story serves as a light to guide you in your path of freedom and joyous living.