Spirit and energy should be clear as the night air;
In the soundless is the ultimate pleasure all along.
Where there's reality in illusion
Is illusion in reality,
For the while playing with magical birth
In the silver bowl.
Sun Buer
12th Century China
Commentary Ivan Granger:
Sun Buer (Sun Bu-er, Sun Pu-erh) is one of a group of female Taoist masters collectively referred to as The Immortal Sisters. While many legendary stories have accumulated around these figures, Sun Buer is clearly a historical individual.
Sun Buer was married and had three children, taking up Taoist practice only when she was 51 years old. Her husband had been studying with the Taoist master Wang Zhe for several years before Sun Buer. The following story is told of how she began her discipleship:
Wang Zhe, feigning drunkenness, barged into Sun Buer's bedroom and collapsed in an apparent stupor. Sun Buer was so shocked that she had the doors to her bedroom locked, trapping Wang Zhe inside, and sent a servant to fetch her husband. When her husband arrived, he said it was impossible for Wang Zhe to be locked in the room because he himself had just been speaking with the Taoist master. They opened the locked door to Sun Buer's room and found it empty.
After this incident, Sun Buer also became a student of Wang Zhe, attaining realization of the Way.
Many of Sun Buer's poems focus on Taoist practices of inner alchemy, using a precise, yet highly metaphoric language in reference to sacred energies and the subtle anatomy, calling to mind the devoutly technical works of Tantra and other forms of Yoga.
