1988 - Sealed my fate with Dao at Louguan (2)

The weather at Mount Zhongnan in September was gloomy and cloudy as usual, you could go without seeing the sun or the moon for a month or two easily. We hadn't seen the sun or the moon since the class began. The mid-Autumn festival happened right in the middle of the three weeks long seminar. A few days before the festival, Master Wang had mentioned twice:

"Only moon cakes but no moon light in the mid-autumn festival is no fun."

We had already heard rumors that Master Wang has the ability to control weather. From the way he said it, we thought that he must be planning something on the festival night. A lot of us had the same thought and therefore a group of us got together and planned a way to see Master Wang do his magic. In the evening on the festival day, everyone gathered in the great hall of the Louguan Temple, Master Wang was also there. We decided to stick close to Master Wang and not let me him get of our sight. When he was walking out of the great hall, we followed. He turn around and smiled,

"Why are you guys following me? Go back inside. Go."

We just stood there and smiled. When Master Wang walked off for about ten seconds, we quickly followed suit. When we got outside, a light breeze raised from the ground and suddenly it started raining. We looked around but couldn't even see the shadow of Master Wang. We looked at each other, "Where is he ?".

The sky was gray at the time and there was not a hint of the moon. I turned around and walked back inside. Some of our classmates were meditating, so i decided to do the same. I wasn't sure how long I sat until suddenly something climbed on my leg. I opened my eyes and was startled to find that it was a mouse. I chased it off me and then raised my head to look at the sky. One could see some moonlight behind the mist but not clearly yet. I slowly walked outside the great hall while keeping my eyes in the sky. The moon became brighter and brighter and one could see the veil of mist gradually dissipated. After another fifteen minutes or so, the clouds started to drift off too. The moon was extra bight and beautiful, one could even felt the warmth of the moonlight. At midnight, all the clouds had disappeared, there was only the big, bright and beautiful moon hanging in the clear sky.

That was the most memorable Mid-Autumn festival in my life.

The next day, Master Wang said in the class :

"The moon came out last night so no one is going to curse me now."

Out of the 20 days that we were in Louguan, the sky was only clear in the festival night. Was that a coincidence? After the seminar had ended, I met a daoist friend of mine in Xian who didn't attend the Louguan event. He told me that he had wagered with someone that one could see the moon during the mid-autumn festival since he knew that Master Wang would be teaching in Louguan at that time. He won the wager.