He has a stone bead with no writing on it. His master told him to use it to unlock the nine that came after.
Gui De Yi had no idea what the nine stone beads were. He knew only that he had to stay alive.
When he was eight, his parents died amid the chaos of war. He was sold by human traffickers, chased by bandits, and so hungry he chewed tree bark. He nearly died in a ditch by the roadside. In the end, an old man named Xuanjizi took him in.
The old man taught him to read, observe the stars, meditate, and make pottery. He said that heaven and earth had nine palaces, and that the human body was a small world of its own. He said, “The Dao gives rise to One, One gives rise to Two, Two gives rise to Three, and Three gives rise to all things.” He also said that the blank stone bead in Gui De Yi's hand was zero, the Dao, the heart, and the beginning of everything.
After the old man died, De Yi took the bead down the mountain. He met Zhiwei, a physician, and learned to heal the sick and save lives. He met blacksmiths, papermakers, brush makers, ink makers, inkstone carvers, and potters, and learned all manner of crafts. He met musicians, chess players, calligraphers, and painters, and learned the four arts. He entered Luoyang and witnessed war, plague, famine, and the defense of a city with his own eyes. At a fortune-teller's stall, he grasped the principles of fate. Amid the blood and flames of a city's defense, he understood what the heart truly was.
One spring, twenty years later, he returned to Guiyuan Temple. Beneath the old plum tree, he finally unraveled the secret of the blank stone bead.
The Dao is never far from people; it is people who stray far from the Dao. Know the One, and all things are accomplished. Attain the One, and all transformations find peace.
