Iron-Crutch Li - Path To Immortality

Path To Immortality

The Eight Immortals became immortal deities through the means of Taoist religion. Within the myth, they lived on an island paradise called Penglai Shan, found east of China, which only they could traverse due to the "weak water" which would not support ships. Among the eight immortals, Li Tieh-Kuai was one of the more popular, and was depicted as a man leaning on crutch and holding a gourd. Some say that in the myth the "gourd had spirals of smoke ascend from it, denoting his power of setting his spirit free from his body." Others say that the gourd was full of medicine which he dispensed to the poor and needy.

Li studied with Lao Tzu (founder of Taoism). He is said to have renounced material comforts and led a life of self-discipline as an act of religious devotion for 40 years, often going without food or sleep.

Li Tieh-Kuai, in the beginning of his Taoist training was said to live in a cave. He was said to be a handsome man. Lao Tzu tempted him with a beautiful woman he had made of wood. After refusing to acknowledge the presence of this woman and therefore defeating his temptation, Lao Tzu told him of his trick and rewarded him with a small white tablet. After consuming this tablet, Li Tieh-Kuai was never hungry nor ill. Lao Tzu again tempts Li Tieh-Kuai with money. Some robbers had buried money in Li Tieh-Kuai's field without knowing he was watching. Lao Tzu approached him in disguise and told him he should take any money that came to him. After Li Tieh-Kuai refused, saying that he did not care if he remained poor his whole life, Lao Tzu rewarded him with another pill. This pill bestowed upon Li Tieh-Kuai the ability to fly at amazing speeds.

Before becoming an immortal, it was previously stated that Li Tieh-Kuai was a very handsome man. However, on one occasion his spirit traveled to Heaven to meet with some other Immortals. He had told his apprentice, Li Ching, to wait for seven days for his spirit to return. If he did not return by then, Li Ching was to burn the body because that meant that he had become an immortal; but after six and a half days the student had to go home to see to his sick mother one last time before she died. So the student cremated the body of Li Tieh-Kuai. The student passed a dying beggar on his way to his mother's but did not have time to bury him. Upon returning, Li Tieh-Kuai's spirit found that his body had been cremated and had to enter the only body available at the time, the corpse of the homeless beggar who had just died of starvation. The beggar, unfortunately, had a long and pointed head, large ears with one large brass earring, a woolly and disheveled beard and hair. He also had long, scraggy, and dark eyebrows, dark eyes, and he had a pan lid on his head and a lame leg. Lao Tzu appeared and gave him a medicine gourd that could cure any illness and never emptied. Li Tieh-Kuai then brought the apprentice's mother back to life using the liquid from his gourd. Li Ching was then dismissed as his student, after being given a small pill and being told that he would work hard enough to become one of the Immortals himself. This turned out to be true.

"The gourd served as a bedroom for the night and held medicine, which Li dispensed with great beneficence to the poor and needy." Lao Tzu also used the bottle to make him an iron crutch that would never rust nor break. He then told Li Tieh-Kuai that he was ready to join the Immortals. From then on, Li Tieh-Kuai was charged to cure the sick and he traveled to many lands and "could be found wherever the sick lay dying or the poor were persecuted."