Puk-chang was acquainted with the three religions, but he considered Confucianism as the first. “Its writings as handed down,” said he, “teach us filial piety and reverence. The learning of the Sages deals with relationships among men and not with spiritual mysteries; but Taoism and Buddhism deal with the examination of the soul and the heart, and so with things above and not with things on the earth. This is the difference.”
At thirty-two years of age he matriculated, but had no interest in further literary study. He became, instead, an official teacher of medicine, astrology and mathematics.
He was a fine whistler, we are told, and once when he had climbed to the highest peak of the Diamond Mountains and there whistled, the echoes resounded through the hills, and the priests were startled and wondered whose flute was playing.]
[There is a term in Korea which reads he-an pang-kwang, “spiritual-eye distant-vision,” the seeing of things in the distance. This pertains to both Taoists and Buddhists.
It is said that when the student reaches a certain stage in his progress, the soft part of the head returns to the primal thinness that is seen in the child to rise and fall when it breathes. From this part of the head go forth five rays of light that shoot out and up more and more as the student advances in the spiritual way. As far as they extend so is the spiritual vision perfected, until at last a Korean sufficiently advanced could sit and say, “In London, to-day, such and such a great affair is taking place.”
For example, So Wha-tam, who was a Taoist Sage, once was seen to laugh to himself as he sat with closed eyes, and when asked why he laughed, said, “Just now in the monastery of Ha-in [300 miles distant] there is a great feast going on. The priest stirring the huge kettle of bean gruel has tumbled in, but the others do not know this, and are eating the soup.” News came from the monastery later on that proved that what the sage had seen was actually true.
The History of Confucius, too, deals with this when it tells of his going with his disciple An-ja and looking off from the Tai Mountains of Shan-tung toward the kingdom of On. Confucius asked An-ja if he could see anything, and An-ja replied, “I see white horses tied at the gates of On.”
Confucius said, “No, no, your vision is imperfect, desist from looking. They are not white horses, but are rolls of white silk hung out for bleaching.”]