The broken ink line is like a cold tree that is about to wither in late autumn, and like a soft branch that grows in early spring, twisted and weak, weak but bone-like, so heavy, but so ethereal, as if you can struggle and peace be applied on a piece of paper at the same time, so that you can create such ink traces that are both confronting and achieving each other. If you do not deliberately flatter or belittle these four words "intersecting sadness and joy" with the most sincere eyes, you have to admit that the two words "beauty and ugliness" have lost their original purpose in the face of these four words.
Master Hongyi Handwriting. What kind of hand is it for
to write these four words?
If the photos and texts are worthy of reference, it can only be said that it is a decayed and barren hand with all the aging characteristics that a sixty-two-year-old elderly should have. The years of hard work and illness have further aggravated the erosion of aging. However, all this may not be what the owner of this hand wants. In the past twenty-four years, all his actions have been deliberately accelerating the decay of his body. He ran around the long journey of the wind and dust, stayed in the humble house of the Zen room, covered his old clothes, and had a simple meal, almost cut off the nourishment of all the flesh in the world. He only urged himself day and night with his peaceful suffering, walking between the world, until the door of liberation that he sincerely yearned for finally opened in front of his eyes.
The hand of Master Hongyi was taken in Quanzhou in 1942.
However, at this time, he opened his eyes and saw that what he saw in front of him was not the gate of liberation, but this cramped and gray Zen room. Looking around, the ordinary bedding was already covered with old clothes. His eyes might have swept across the branch on the wall of the Zen room that he usually uses to hang his hat and hat. He may have heard of a legend about him and the branches. A disciple Lu Boyou, who once held the etiquette of his disciples, wrote in an article about their relationship 16 years ago: "There is a slender pine branch, which the gentleman also cherishes and hides it like a treasure, and refuses to show it to others; according to him, this (pine branch) was when he was born, and flew in with a magpies and and landed in front of the mother's bed." Although the disciple then wrote: "The story of the magpies holding branches is of course very causal to ordinary people, but the gentleman is just a souvenir." However, this is still a devout disciple who uses this to exaggerate the humble and easy virtue of his teacher.
He himself never agreed to this legend, but he might not have imagined that soon, the branch in the Zen room would be accompanied by enthusiastic believers to become the pine branch that symbolizes his birth - but that was just an ordinary longan branch that could be seen everywhere in Quanzhou.
His birth is not different from ordinary people, and his growth is not magical. When his father passed away, he was only five years old. He did not seem to feel the pain of losing his father at a young age. Instead, he became interested in the ceremony of monks placing Yankou at the funeral. He put on a bed cover and played the game of chanting scriptures and putting on a Yankou - later, this was also explained as one of his opportunities to become a monk in the future. But this is more like a game where children play with great hearts, rather than some incredible cause and effect.
If you have to find the most unique feature of him, perhaps it is his unique personality. When he was young, he couldn't stand his brother's behavior of worshiping nobles and trampling on lowly people, so he deliberately did the opposite. "If you meet poor people, respect them, and those who are rich and noble people are less likely to be fond of them. He likes to eat cats more, and his unequal heart is also more extreme. He often respects cats like respecting others, and may not pay tribute to others." When he was studying in Japan, his remote personality even reached an incomprehensible point. His classmate and friend Ouyang Yuqian took a long tram to visit him, but he pushed open the window and said, "I made an appointment with you at 8 o'clock, but you have passed five minutes. I have no time now. Let's make an appointment another day." After that, he nodded, closed the window door and went in. His friend had to turn around and leave.
Although after becoming a monk, his temperament was already quite gentle and quiet, like pebbles that were worn away by the stream, his habits may sometimes show off like the fire on the stone.When he was preaching the Dharma in Qingdao , he refused the food specially prepared for him by Zhanshan Temple on a hunger strike. Until the person who delivered the meal served him a bowl of mass dishes, he asked, "Does the public eat this too? If so, he eats it, no, he still doesn't." He was willing to salute the ragged woodcutter he met on the mountain road. When the mayor of Qingdao invited him to a banquet, he only replied to the poem "I used to pay attention to this day when I went out to rely on it and think about it. I only lived in the valley for monks, but it was not suitable for national scholars to have a banquet." This poem was sent by everyone when they were about to enter the banquet.
Various unique behaviors and actions, in the writings of devout believers and in the eyes of all living beings in the world, can become a clear proof of the extraordinary and extraordinary saints. Just like in ancient novels of strange acclaim, gods always disguised as beggars with quirky qualities, and Bodhisattvas also transformed into slutty prostitutes. All kinds of unique behaviors are just a fool in the world, an illusory appearance, and the reason why he becomes himself is the heart hidden in the appearance. That heart is not very different from ordinary people. There are sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, and comfort. And the reason why he is different is perhaps that he has an unusual keenness and intuition about suffering.
"The five or six years between the ages of twenty and twenty-six were the happiest time in my life. Since then, there have been constant sorrow and sorrow until I became a monk."
When he said this, he had been a monk for several years, but when he recalled the past, his heart still had no worries. His mother passed away when he was 26 years old. "When my mother was not here, I was buying a coffin, and I didn't give it to her. When I came back, I was no longer here!" Many years later, he was already a great monk who was looking up to by everyone, but at a Dharma meeting, he suddenly, "I choked up and sobbed like rain in front of the public. All the listeners were shocked and frightened. The lecturer on the seat was also stunned and dared not speak." It was not until later that people realized that this was because he remembered the expression of filial piety in the scriptures and remembered his mother's nature.
The grief and sorrow after losing his mother always torture his heart, and the harsh and hard practice after becoming a monk always torture his body always torment. The pain that fate has put on him and the pain that he has deliberately sought are engraved in his life. It left a deep imprint in his heart and in his body.
So, he raised this decayed and old hand engraved with the sufferings of the world and self-cultivation, and picked up his pen and wrote down his last four words in the world:
"The intersection of sadness and joy."
On the first day of the September 1st of the autumn, October 10, 1942, the Western calendar, Master Hongyi Li Shutong was about to die.
This article is from the B02-03 edition of the special topic "Sad and Joyful" of "Beijing News·Book Review Weekly" on September 30.
All actions are impermanent, and everything is suffering. All dharmas have no self, and nirvana is joy.
——"Buddha preached and printed the sutra for the Dragon King of the Sea"
body
Ascetic truth
body pain If the pain in the body can be divided into levels, then this disease in the mid-autumn season of 1942 was not the most painful disease that Hongyi suffered since his lifetime. What caused him the most torment was the evil disease in the cold winter seven years ago. At that time, he had just returned to Quanzhou from Hui'an and immediately fell ill in a grass sanctuary. This evil disease was extremely dangerous. In a letter to Xia Yizun later, he described the origin of his illness in this way:
"A month and a half ago, he went to the countryside to preach, lived in a dark room, feeling the dirty air. He then became very hot, unconscious, and had a serious external symptoms."
He called this serious illness "any life has not passed", and "the disease was in danger for several days and was on the verge of danger." In his letter to the other two monks, Nian Xi and Fengde, he described the dangerous situation of this disease more thoroughly:
" When he first started, internal and external symptoms were concurrent, internal fever, and external boils were very fast. In just one day, his lower arm had been ulcerated for five or sixteen, all of which were pus and blood (such as the hands and feet of the beggar in front of the mountain gate of Chengtian Temple ). However, he developed to the upper arm and gradually became ulcerated, and his momentum was almost unstoppable.Within a few days, a huge boil on his feet appeared on his feet, and his feet and legs were swollen, making his momentum even more ferocious. All the people who watched him felt heartbroken. Therefore, if there are two symptoms, one of them, you can lose your life, not to mention concurrent, not to mention a fever and a coma, so there has been danger in several days. "
Although Hongyi described the cause and symptoms in the letter so thoroughly, these descriptions are still light for those who visited him. His arm muscles had ulcerated and fell off in an entire piece, and even saw bones wrapped in rotten flesh. Brown-yellow tissue fluid and purple-black pus and blood kept pouring out of the affected area. Even when the disease no longer continued to develop, "the sores on the feet were not broken, and a large bowl of pus and blood flowed from the fingers next to him."
The body was sore The defeat exudes a foul smell that makes people hide their noses, almost like the sinful souls of the dead who were tortured in the water and land paintings of Hedao. This sudden illness allowed Hiroichi to almost see the face of death. In the most dangerous days, he made a will for himself and gave it to the Master Chuanguan who served. Although the high fever and strange pain torture his body and consciousness, his explanation to himself is still as detailed as possible:
"Before his death, please help chant the Buddha's name outside the tent, but there is no need to chant it often. After death, do not move your body. The door lock took eight hours. After eight hours, do not wipe your body or wash your face. That is, he wrapped the clothes he carries with him, wrapped them with a torn quilt, and rolled them up, and sent them to the mountain depression behind the building. If there is a tiger eating for three days, it will be good if it is good, otherwise it will be burned on the spot in three days. (Not notify him after burning, and do not notify him early.) Before and after my death, everything is very simple and must be followed. Otherwise, it is a rebellious son. "
Perhaps at that moment, he remembered the cause and condition of the Buddha sacrificing his body and feeding the tiger, hoping to use his evil disease to destroy the body and sacrifice his body for the last time as a sacrifice for the Dharma, in order to achieve the ultimate achievement of liberation. After all, he had adhered to all kinds of hard work that tempered his body and mind during his lifetime. Almost everyone who had seen him would be amazed at his thin body and strict self-disciplined hard work. Many people's memories mentioned Master Hongyi's simple and simple life. His close friend Xia Yizun recalled that they lived in Baimahu . He found that Hongyi's luggage "was actually wrapped in a powder-breaking mat". After arriving at the residence, "he opened the bed by himself, first spread the powder-breaking mat on the bed carefully, spread the quilt, and then put it on A few pieces of clothes were rolled up as pillows. Xia Yizun noticed that the towel he took to wash his face was "black and shattered".
Master Hongyi was in Hui'an, and he could see his face showing his illness.
Because he adhered to the precept of not eating after noon, Xia specially sent two bowls of vegetarian dishes before noon. "All the bowls were originally just about lace cabbage, but in the food he made almost carefully for him, Ding Ning happily put the rice into his mouth and solemnly picked up a piece of lace cabbage with chopsticks. I almost shed tears of joy and shame when I saw it." The next day, a friend made four dishes to vegetarian him, and one of them was very salty. Xia complained, "This is too salty! "But Hongyi replied, "Okay! Salty also has a salty taste, and it's good! "
" In him, there is nothing bad in the world. Everything is fine. The small hotel is good, the cabin is good, the hanger is good, the powdered mat is good, the shabby hand towel is good, the cabbage is good, the raisin is good, the salty and bitter vegetables are good, the run away is good, everything has a taste, nothing is great. What a scenery this is! Not to mention religious words, isn’t the so-called artisticization of life in this state? People say he is suffering, but I want to say he is enjoying." Xia Yizun firmly believes that his friend tasted "full taste and true taste" from the trivialities of life. He "received all things without being bound by prejudices by inherited prejudices, and he gave him the true face and observed and appreciated them truthfully." Therefore, "this is true liberation and true pleasure."
Master Hongyi is reading the scriptures.
The friend's description is sincere, but there may be no shortage of praise. His respected people are willing to interpret his words and words in depth. His student Shi Youji described in detail a meeting in late autumn after the teacher became a monk. When the student found that the teacher was still wearing a short single robes in such a cold autumn, he couldn't help but ask, "Will it be cold?" Hongyi replied, "After becoming a monk, he became healthier and did not eat after noon every day. Even in the severe cold weather, he only wore a jacket." When saying goodbye, Hongyi specially brought up an oil lamp and sent his former students to the outside of the short house where he lived, which was "outside a few couches, only knee-holding". When Shi Youji left, the monk from Hongyi's close servant told him specifically:
"The old monk never refused to meet guests at night. He became a monk for twenty years and never lit the lights. This time it is very special for you."
Even if he is not his best friend and devout disciple, he can get a great infection from his asceticism. Until many years later, an old concierge at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts still remembers Hongyi's time in the past when he was in the civilized world. Every year when he returns to Shanghai during the winter and summer vacations, he puts the bedding in his house. "Every time he comes back, I give me three Yuan Datou, twelve yuan a year, and I can buy three quilts!" He called Hongyi "Old Master". When Hongyi first became a monk, he and a worker Wen Yu went to visit him. "He shaved his head, carried water and watered flowers in the yard, called us 'laymen', called himself 'little monk', and asked us to sit down. He personally brought us tea and kept us vegetarian food. There was no oil in the vegetables. It was so bitter. Wen Yu and I cried. He ate it with a good meal."
From becoming a monk to entering the world, Hongyi's ascetic practice has been consistent. In the eyes of the world, this kind of self-pain is the most eye-catching religion and a way that easily causes inner feelings. In Buddhism, asceticism especially occupies an extremely special position. The pain and illness of the body are often regarded as a necessary ladder for practice.
Two thousand years ago, Buddha practiced diligently in the way of starving himself, just like the seal of Hongyi's seal carved for himself, "One breath remains." The Buddha's ascetic practice even completely stopped his breathing, and his self-pain reached a shocking level - "My spine is concave and convex, like a spindle chain, because of the lack of food, my ribs are rotten and broken, like a rotten rafter, my eyes are light, like the light of water in the deepest part of the well, and can only be seen." The body has already killed himself and suffered to this point, so that the Buddha asserted that all monks and Brahmins in the past, present and future "although they suffer intense pain, if I am now, they should be the most extreme, and there is no way to go."
From this perspective, Master Hongyi's strict and moderate diet and strict and frugal life, just like the ascetic monks who have passed through the Buddha, are practicing, or imitating the Buddha's ascetic practice back then. As a Buddhist monk in the eyes of the world, Master Hongyi's sincere and persistent self-cultivation has indeed touched countless people, so that he firmly nailed the image of a pure and thin ascetic monk to the hearts of the world. But the question is, can you really be liberated by doing so asceticism?
1919 Master Hongyi took a photo at Qinglian Temple in Yuquan, Hangzhou. At this time, Li Shutong had just become a monk, but he was already like a Qing ascetic monk.
Line
Do not seek perfection
"Although I have been cruel and ascetic, I have not yet obtained the method of human beings and have achieved the most special and most superior knowledge."
The answer was no since the Buddha created Buddhism. After experiencing the "superbest" asceticism, the Buddha asserted that the only result of asceticism is of no benefit except to destroy the body and torture the mind and the mind. If the founders all taught this, then why did generations of monks, as well as Master Hongyi himself, walk so harshly on the path of asceticism?
The statue of Sakyamuni was unearthed in Hikuri, Pakistan around the 4th century AD. It is now in the Lahore Museum in Pakistan. It is a representative work of the statue of Gandhara .
The answer may be that asceticism is of course not helpful to fully understand the path to liberation, but it is probably an indispensable step toward liberation.Asceticism is a desperate reduction in the daily triviality of the outside world, and a strong restraint of the inner self-body and mind. If the liberation that Buddhism ultimately pursues is the door to emptiness, then before reaching emptiness, one must constantly abandon the things that linger inside and outside oneself. Asceticism allows this abandonment to become one's own normal state. If you have fewer desires, your body and mind will become more focused.
But from one to empty, it still requires a difficult leap. The Buddha gave up asceticism through extremely harsh asceticism and sought true liberation. For Hongyi, the evil disease he suffered after experiencing asceticism also became a turning point in his life.
To a certain extent, this sudden evil disease was the result of Hongyi's many years of asceticism. The strict observance of the precepts that did not eat after noon and only vegetarian food in a rough vegetarian life will inevitably cause damage to his physical health. The clothes and mat he was sitting and lying on and sitting, and he was often used for several years or even for decades without replacement, and will naturally become a place where bacteria can hide dirt. From the perspective of modern medicine, this evil disease that Master Hongyi suddenly broke out in the winter of 1935 was the inevitable result of suppurative bacterial infection and weak immune system.
The real miracle is that his body, which is so weak due to years of asceticism, finally improved. The high fever began to fade, granulation gradually grew on the ulcerated arms, the swelling legs and feet began to swell, and the feet began to be able to walk down the ground, and finally regained vitality. Hongyi explained it as his friends who "recited to recite scriptures and repent for a dead person (Hongyi claimed) and recite scriptures sincerely and diligently day and night." "With a sincere heart, he recited scriptures for several days, he was inspired by great inspiration, and he was able to recover from the dead and turn danger into a barbarism." Hongyi's belief in the Buddhist teachings of devoutly reciting the body healed the pain of the body - of course, the Japanese doctor of medicine Huang Bingding's skillful and dedicated surgical diagnosis and treatment techniques also finally cured him.
Li Shutong suffered from typhoid fever and dysentery in the summer of 1931. This was his first serious illness. In a note to his student Liu Zhiping , he mentioned that this illness made him weak and his waist sore, and asked him to buy "Douanshi Baoshen Pills" on his behalf.
"This time my serious illness can be said to be a great memory of my life," Hongyi wrote in his memories afterwards. He specifically remembered the clock he saw when he was seriously ill. This clock is always a little slower than the ordinary clock, so he moved to another place and still slowed down his clock by two minutes:
"This matter is seen by others, maybe it is funny! But I think it is very interesting, because when I saw this clock, I thought of the situation where I was seriously ill in Cao'an, which often makes me feel ashamed, ashamed that I have little virtue and heavy karma. I want to feel great ashamed at all times. I always deliberately slowed down the clock by two minutes, and looked like the clock in Cao'an. Not only was it at that time, but it is still the case now, but I also wish to live a lifetime. It is always like this."
For practitioners, suffering is the way to become the path to liberation. What the Buddha taught shortly after enlightenment was the "Lord Truth of Suffer": "The Lost Truth of Suffer is the suffering of life, old age, illness, death, sorrow, sorrow and distress." In life, all kinds of sufferings are inserted into the body and heart like fine needles. A person will experience all kinds of suffering throughout his life. After deeply understanding the pain in his heart, he can get the true meaning of the realm from the suffering. The vivid description of the sufferings gathered in the Buddhist scriptures is just like the evil diseases suffered by Hongyi:
"Sentient beings should know that they must observe this body and have thoughts. This body is like four poisonous snakes, which are often eaten by countless insects; this body is smelly and dirty, and is bound by greed; this body is hateful, like a dead dog; this body is impure, and the nine holes are always flowing..."
Therefore, those who practice practice "have to give up the filthy body" in order to seek the heart of Bodhi and the way to liberation - for the disciples of the Buddhist sect, there is no doubt about this.
Hongyi was seriously ill, perhaps he was moved by the evil and suffering. In his letter to Nianxi and Fengde, he wrote that when the illness was in danger, he himself "let go of everything and devoted himself to rebirth in the West" - only by abandoning this body can he be liberated from pain.But in the end, he recovered from the extremely painful and ill disease. The truth he realized was not to abandon the body collected by all sufferings and finally be liberated, but "great ashamed": he was ashamed that he had been in , Minnan for ten years, "very few things he did succeed, and most of the broken ones were broken." Therefore, he felt ashamed that he "feels really lacking in virtue", and he further wrote: " Therefore, although what I have done in southern Fujian for ten years is not perfect, I don't want him to be perfect!"
He explained:
"My temperament is very special, I just hope that my affairs will fail, because I am often ashamed of failure and imperfection! If I can know that I have lacked virtue and my lack of cultivation, then I can work hard to succeed and work hard to improve my mistakes and improve my goodness! If a person is done perfectly, then this person will be satisfied and proud, and instead increase his thoughts of being arrogant and aroused, and make all kinds of mistakes. So it is better not to hope that it will be perfect. No matter what, I always hope that it will fail, and failure will be ashamed! If I am successful because of success, it will be amazing! "
This understanding is so plain and so kind, and there is almost no profound and mysterious philosophy, so that it is more like a bowl of mellow chicken soup than the wonderful way of Buddhism. And the mystery is also in this. If Hongyi came to the Buddhist scriptures that this body was dirty and should be abandoned early and seek liberation, then this might be more in line with the image of a magnificent Buddhist monk.
But if you think about this conclusion carefully, you will find that this is just a simple description of Buddhist scriptures and another common cliché. Liberation is the ultimate result of the pursuit of Buddhism. Although this result is supremely important, the process of how to achieve this result is equally important - if liberation is the final result, then the best way to achieve this result is to not be born from the beginning. But since you have been born as a human body, this body is like a dream, a bubble or a ghost city of Rakshasa, it always provides a container of enlightenment, a possibility of practicing in the world. Only this body can you experience all the sufferings in the world, and only this body can you understand the truth of liberation through all sufferings. Therefore, before finally reaching the other shore of liberation, shouldn’t this body be taken seriously?
In a letter to Liu Zhiping, Li Shutong mentioned his serious illness in 1935, calling it "a life of death".
If liberation is the ultimate perfection, then this body is the incompleteness before liberation. Being a human body is not perfect, but being able to understand this incompleteness and strive to move towards perfection may be in this so-called meaning of practice. Since being an incomplete human body, one must pursue perfection in this world of human beings with a heart of perfection.
This incomplete world is naturally filled with all kinds of sufferings, just like the door couplet written by Hongyi in the grass treasure where he was sick:
grass accumulation will not be eliminated, and the business in front of him will be full;
temple door is always closed, don’t forget that there are many suffering people in the world.
A year after he recovered from his evil disease, he walked on the streets of Xiamen, and saw the suffering and joyful sentient beings in the world. Suddenly, his heart was moved and wrote a short letter to his friend Mr. Gao Wenxian. This short letter was so unique that in the short and subtle words, there was a faint smell of some prophecy floating in the dust:
went out yesterday, and three things were heard:
1. I bought a pair of rubber shoes worth one yuan, and the clerk only asked for a price of 70 cents.
2. I heard someone playing harmonica on the road, and its song is the Japanese national anthem.
3. The wind and rain on the way home are sad.
This day is Dingchou The first lunar month of the year, March 11, 1937.
Master Hongyi was photographed in Gulangyu, Xiamen at the end of 1936.
heart
Sadness and joy
There is no sorrow or joy. His face is so calm, as if he is not concerned about anything external, but only a hint of ethereal smile appears on the corner of his mouth. This smile was not intentional, nor was it a joy in my heart, but just the kindness that had been portrayed on the face of the years. This is also the image of Master Hongyi, the most familiar to the world. It seems that through this face, you can really see the subtle meaning of the Buddha's heart contained inside.
But this is probably just an explanation of the meaning of the future generations, an image created by the heart either because of respect or curiosity. If this photo can make a sound, the gaze will hear the roar of bombs, the roar of guns, the roar of fighter planes in the air, the cry of women and children, the moans of the wounded, and the blood of the dead will flow from the ruins.
The photo of Master Hongyi is extremely useful and is even considered a standard photo. But in fact, it was taken in Shanghai during the Songhu War period, which is the photo taken in the sound of artillery fire mentioned by Xia Yizun.
At this time, it has been seven months since Hongyi wrote the short note describing the street scene of Xiamen for his friend. In Shanghai on October 29, 1937, the beacon of the Battle of Songhu had turned this Far East No. 4 city into a Shura field in the world. In the past three months, the Japanese army launched the Lugou Bridge Incident and then invaded Pingjin and North China. At this time, Hongyi, who was preaching in Qingdao, Shandong, had not yet affected the artillery fire of the Japanese army, but he could also smell the pungent smell of gunpowder. On the 13th day of the seventh lunar month of the old calendar, it was originally the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Hongyi's reign as a monk, and it arrived in the artillery fire of the Japanese army approaching Qingdao. At this time, everyone around him advised Hongyi to avoid the enemy and leave Qingdao, but Hongyi wrote the word "martyrdom" to show his ambition. In his letter to his friend, he wrote:
"It has been decided in front of the dead man that he will go on the Mid-Autumn Festival. If Jin is unable to leave, he will be greatly criticized. Therefore, even if there is a great war in Qingdao, he is unwilling to retreat."
Just as he wrote this letter, the Battle of Songhu broke out. From North China to Southeast, there was already war, but it was not until the end of October that Hongyi finally left Qingdao and headed for Shanghai, waiting for the ship to Xiamen after three days. As usual, he made a detailed plan for his actions. In a letter to his friend Xia Yizun, who is in Shanghai, he wrote, "If you go to Shanghai, you will temporarily live in Tai'an Store, Guangdong." He also wrote in small words next to him in detail "outside the New North Gate, next to the road, facing south, the place belongs to the French Concession , opposite the door of a certain silver building, diagonally opposite the old site of the New North Gate, and is in the west."
When Xia Yizun went to visit him, he found that the hotel where Hongyi lived was "on the Republic of China Road and on the other hand, it was close to the Bund , and the Japanese plane was blowing up the area of Pudong and Nanshi". Therefore, "sitting in the room will be shocked every few minutes." Xia Yizun, who lives in Shanghai Concession, was in Shanghai for the whole time, but he could not stop it from being so close to the war. However, Hongyi was sitting in the artillery fire, "calm as usual, and only moved his lips slightly, and he must be chanting Buddha's name again" - this photo of us who were not happy on our face, and even "still smiling shadows" was taken after this meeting.
"Everything in the world is originally fake and cannot be serious. Didn't I write a four-verse verse for you in the past? " Diamond Sutra "? "All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, bubbles, and shadows, like dew and lightning, so you should be viewed like this.' - You are now awakening to this truth." What you said to Xia Yizun in the hotel sounds at first glance, it seems that Hongyi is indifferent to the huge suffering that is happening around him with thousands of names, but just treats it as a conditioned dharma like a dream bubble, and visualizes this monstrous war with this empty and illusion heart. But in fact, for Hongyi, these words were just a cooling medicine to comfort his friends' sorrowful hearts. War is not unrelated to him, but after experiencing the world and suffering, his reaction will no longer be as exciting as when he was young and in the vulgar world. Before entering the monk, Hongyi gave a handbook from his youth to his disciple Feng Zikai as a souvenir. It was the poem he wrote before he went to Japan to study:
"Walk away wildly. The clown in the middle of the country, the crows cried in the evening, and a few decaying willows. Who can clean up the broken rivers and mountains? The west wind is still... Listen to the roar of the blue dragon at the bottom of the box. The west wind cannot sleep at the long night, so I can save all the people who cherish their hearts and hearts. Is it the motherland, can I bear to let them down?"
Such a "than cherish their hearts and hearts" roared wildly, and now in the twilight years, in the ancient Buddha yellow scroll, it turned into a Buddhist verse that was as dew as lightning. But the inner waves did not really sink into the deep pool of the ancient well, and would also surface in the shocks of the outside world.When he returned to Xiamen, the war also rushed towards him. The situation in Xiamen is becoming increasingly dangerous. In a letter to his disciple Li Fangyuan, Hongyi wrote:
"Although the news in Xiamen has been a little tight recently, the dead people do not avoid shells because of the protection of the law, and vow to live and die with Xiamen."
He quoted the poem "Don't think that the old garden is light in autumn, but there is still the fragrance of yellow flowers in the evening" - "In our life, evening festival is the most important thing, and I hope to encourage it with Ren and others."
7m later, on May 3, 1938, Hongyi left Xiamen, and four days later, Xiamen fell.
The war continued to burn, and the earth turned into a hell on earth. In the dark night when the artillery fire was lit, blood was everywhere. The grin of the killer and the wail of the victims were intertwined on this deep earth. If the entire land is compared to the body of a human being, then every pore is a creature, every grain of blood and flesh is a life. Now, they are all ulcerated and corrupted, their skin is blooming, and their muscles are separated by the ravage, erosion, and torture of war bacteria like abscess, boils and poisons. If the illness two years ago was a pain for oneself, then the war today is a pain for the world. The flesh and blood bones that were painful on my arm are now lying on the ruins of scorched earth.
Is the Abyssal Hell of sentient beings his Abyssal Hell? How to be liberated?
destroy
10 The heart moon is full
"The bright moonlight shines on all things. Mountains, rivers, forests, cool and pure. Squirming and flying dust, reunion and joy. Bathing together, it is like climbing a paradise."
Two trees are swaying, the lake water is quiet, and the distant mountains are faint. The two people sitting quietly by the lake look up at the bright moon in the sky, and staring at the lake light and moon shadow. Even the two little rabbits next to them seem to be spiritual, not afraid of disturbances from strangers. All things in the world are so harmonious, so clean, so peaceful, and this scene is indeed like a paradise, but there is no doubt that all are scenes on earth.
I believe that when cartoonist Feng Zikai painted such a scene, his heart would be as cool and pure as the moonlight. This painting, along with other paintings with the same sentiment, has a total of 60 paintings. It is a gift for this devout disciple to his mentor, Master Hongyi. As early as ten years ago, when Master Hongyi's fiftieth birthday, Feng Zikai vowed to draw " Collection of Life-Protecting Paintings ", with the purpose of protecting life-Protecting life-Protecting life-Protecting life-Protecting life-Protecting death. He painted fifty paintings at the age of fifty, and sixty paintings at the age of sixty, until he was a hundred. Now, he has fulfilled his vow, and Hongyi also wrote poems for each painting according to the painting's meaning, explaining the way to protect life and abstain from killing.
"Collection of Life-protecting Paintings" Episode 2 "Mid-Autumn Festival Gala".
Feng Zikai's innocent and childish style, coupled with Hong Yi's true romantic calligraphy, the world in the book is outlined like the Pure Land of Buddha, but unfortunately, the bright moonlight in this Pure Land cannot illuminate the endless dark night in reality. At this time, it was already late autumn of 1939. The War of Resistance Against Japan entered a fierce battle. The fire of war had burned over most of China. Under the cold moonlight, there were only wailings everywhere and the phosphorus fires flashing among the bones of corpses. The bright moon and wind in the book can only be wishful imagination. Once this imagination enters reality, it will be ruthlessly swept away by bloody storms.
In the book, it is to protect life, and outside the book is to kill life, it is to kill life without restraint. Hongyi once felt the tremor of artillery bombing on the edge of the Songhu battlefield, while his disciple Feng Zikai witnessed the tragic situation of military plunder with his own eyes. On November 6, 1937, two Japanese fighter planes flew to Shimen Bay to launch air strikes. Two hours of air raids and crazy strafing. Thirty-two people died in the town, five of which were scattered in the rubble outside the back door of Feng's yard. Feng Zikai fled his family "with gunpowder and bloody smell". On the way to escape, he heard more horrifying tragedies. At Shanghai South Station, "the roof of the train was full of people. Before he could drive, he suddenly heard the sound of the plane. The train suddenly ran. People on the top fell one after another, some fell beside the track, their hands and feet were crushed by wheels, and the sound of exclamations drowned out the sound of the train!" A relative who escaped from Jiaxing told him that he "saw a woman holding a baby and hiding in the corner to feed her.Suddenly a bomb fell near the station, and shrapnel flew over, just cutting off the woman's head. In the moment after the peeling, the headless woman was still sitting in danger with her baby in her arms, not falling down, and the baby was still sucking. "
Feng Zikai painted this tragic scene with the same brushstrokes as the painting "Husheng Painting Collection", which included it in his "Wartime Pictures" which describes the various aspects of wartime life. "Husheng Painting Collection" and "Wartime Pictures" are like two sides of a piece of paper, ideal harmony and peace and bloodyness in reality. And this is also the portrayal of his last four years of Master Hongyi.
"Wartime Pictures" painted by Feng Zikai.
Master Hongyi's last four years are often depicted as if he was separated from the world. He preached and preached, lived in the mountains and forests, and returned letters to people with good relationships and wisdom, and admired his reputation. The crowds of monks and laymen who asked for calligraphy, ate, chanted Buddha's name, and studied the law. It seemed that external objects had never disturbed his thoughts, nor did they interrupt his path to seeking final liberation.
However, if the eyes focused on Hongyi and concerned about all living beings with their eyes, they would find that around Hongyi's cool world was the five turbid world burning with the fire of disaster. Although Quanzhou where he finally lived was not trapped in the claws of the Japanese army, since the War of Resistance in 1937, the bombing of Japanese fighter jets reached 49 times within five years. Just a month before his destruction, on September 10, 1942, Japanese planes flew to Quanzhou city twice for bombing. , dropped 8 bombs, killed 2 people, injured 8 people, and destroyed 15 houses. The war also made the daily trivialities he was concerned about became difficult and difficult. When Xiamen fell in 1938, the rice price in Quanzhou was 7 yuan per kilogram, and in the summer before his death, the rice price had suddenly risen to 150 yuan per kilogram.
In an instant, nine hundred births and deaths, and thousands of rebirths were passed away in an instant. How many births and deaths were passed away in this war? What is the reason? I believe that I am not one of the thousands of rebirths. With those who were buried in scorched earth, died in trenches, crushed in ruins, pierced by bayonets, shot by guns, forced by hunger, trapped by plagues, trapped by plagues Who is the deceased who suffers more than them? What is the difference between the death he goes to and the death they suffer?
Indeed, this world is not perfect, so there is sorrow and joy. It is precisely because of sorrow and joy that such a sentient being is dependent on each other can be sown with all kinds of sins while committing all kinds of sins.
No matter what, he is going to leave this world that is so contradictory and so chaotic. He seems to have already predicted that his life will end. In May of this year, in a letter to his disciple Gong Tianfa, he wrote:
"The rest of him will return west, and this is the last lesson. "
As early as ten years ago, Hongyi gave a speech on "The Last of Life" at Miaoshi Temple in Xiamen. He narrated the story from serious illness to death and even after his death. It was very detailed and detailed, and it was more appropriate to use the small wooden fish to chant the Buddha's name at the end of life. So that if the body is stiff and cannot wear clothes after death, "swallowed with hot water, stir hot water with cloth, bend the arms, elbows and knees, and move around soon, like a living person." His will before his death also reminded him to be as detailed as he was, from "to check if the window door is not closed properly," to the time when the body is removed, "to carry four commonly used small bowls Go, put four legs of the niche, fill it with water, so as not to smell the smell, which will damage the ants' lives during burning, and be cautious." He specifically reminded that even if the body has been put into the niche, the water of the small bowl of the tread must be "filled every day with the small bowl of the tread, so that the water will dry and cause the ants to smell the smell."
is so meticulous and rigorous, almost delicate. It can be imagined that if it were not Hongyi, but another ordinary person who made such a meticulous request before his death, he would probably feel bored and complained in his heart. In a sense, this seems to be contrary to the so-called "great freedom" way of liberation in Buddhism, and more like the obsession of secular people in the world.
But if this is really an obsession, then for Buddhists, hoping to become a Buddha and seek for liberation and never slack off for life is not an obsession? Because we know that sentient beings are afraid of death, we have made a vow to abstain from killing and protecting life. Isn’t this vow a kind of obsession? When seeing sentient beings suffering, one has to be compassionate; when seeing sentient beings benefit, one has to be happy. Let go of everything and achieve great freedom, even if it is liberation; and if you are dedicated to goodness and protect all living beings, this kind of gratitude, sorrow and joy is also a kind of liberation?
His meticulousness and rigor until he finally wrote the final writing. After writing the now popular "sadness and joy", he wrote three more words "Seeing and Contemporary Sutra". To indicate that the source of these four words is not self-creation, but its origin, and he is just quoting Buddhist scriptures into sentences.
But the "Amitabha Sutra" does not have these four words. The real source of these four words is the "Lingyun Sutra". According to Buddhist legend, when all kinds of disasters and disasters in the Dharma-Ending Age arrive, the Shurangama Sutra will disappear into the world and the Dharma will be destroyed. This sutra describes that after listening to the Buddha's teachings, Ananda, "held his hands together and bowed to the public, his heart was clear and his sorrow and joy were mixed." He told the Buddha that he had now realized the Dharma of Buddhahood, and that he had no doubts in his practice." Although he had not yet truly saved and achieved the right result, he "will save all sentient beings in the last calamity."
This is the vow made by the Buddha's disciple Ananda two thousand three hundred years ago. Now, it is also the verse written by the Buddhist disciple Hongyi before his death.
Three days after writing the final writing of "Sadness and Joy", on the fourth day of the ninth lunar month, October 13, 1942, the Western calendar, Hongyi entered the destruction.
"If you see tears in Yu's eyes, this is the feeling of the 'interspersed sadness and joy', and it is not because of him, so you should not misunderstand it."
There was no tears in his eyes that day.
When breathing stops, it is eight o'clock in the evening.
The moon is like a boat.
in the world
The letter sent by Master Hongyi to a friend.
The friendship between gentlemen is as light as water.
Follow the image and seek it, and it is a thousand miles away.
asked Yu Heshi, but he forgot to say anything.
The branches are full of spring, and the moon is full of the sky.
When Master Hongyi's letter passed through the smoke of cannon fire and sent it to his friend Xia Yizun, it was half a month since his death. He suddenly remembered a joke with Hongyi one day more than ten years ago. He asked Hongyi, "What if you are not a secret, and you are dying, entering the niche, and cremating, I am a layman?" Hongyi smiled and said, "I have written a suicide note here, and I will hand it over to you when necessary. If you are in another place, I will ask your family to send a telegram to ask you back. After you read the suicide note, you will do everything."
But he finally did not see the final side of his old friend, nor did he personally handle the funerals of him who were "all layman".
He could only hold the letter and stood there in tears. His disciple Feng Zikai was tidying up his body when he received the telegram from his teacher's rebirth and preparing to move his family from Zunyi to Chongqing. He did not cry, but "sitted under the window and was silent for dozens of minutes, and made a wish: to make a hundred statues of the monk (that is, portraits) and send them to those who believe in him in each province, tie stones and erect monuments to hold them forever. After arriving in Chongqing, he started writing. After making the vow, he would still eat early porridge, pack up his luggage, and find a car."
His student Li Hongliang could only get news of the death of his teacher from an old newspaper. At this time, the Japanese invaders had attacked Jinhua and approached Shaoxing. As a teacher at Shaoxing Middle School, for several days, he had to lead the students to flee east and west among the mountains and ridges. When he finally returned home after the war, most of the houses in Jiezhu Temple where Master Hongyi lived had become primary school buildings. Although Xiaoqiyun Temple was fine, the calligraphy and paintings of Master Hongyi and other calligraphy and paintings in the temple were all taken away by the traitor Hu Yaoshu. "Later, someone saw the Dunhuang Tang people who wrote scriptures inscribed by the traitor Hu Yaoshu at the house of the traitor Hu Yaoshu. They were torn apart by a child and trampled on the ground. Others can be seen!"
Puqing's house in the grass-shaped field where Hongyi once lived, "has been hiding in the corner and retaining it as if he was in meditation."
"Ignorant sentient beings, without realizing it, have a short life span, like a fire of stone, like a bubble on water, like lightning, how can you be in the middle, not be shocked or afraid? What is in the middle, greedy for money and profit? What is in the middle, indulging in licentiousness and drinking? What is in the middle, being jealous? In this way, life and death, wandering in the sea."
All gatherings, life and death are truly as impermanent as the sea, and people drifting in the sea, whether sad, joy, sorrow, anger, annoyance, sorrow, or joy, are ultimately just a small boat, drifting in this endless sea of suffering. The so-called liberation or not may be just a difference between overturning the boat in the sea of suffering and being able to reach the other shore. No matter what, this boundless sea of suffering is the world.
But even though everyone is in the world, they are boating in the sea of suffering, but boats are different. Some are passenger ships on the tower ships and bamboo rafts. Although the treasure raft that Master Hongyi rides is not high or low in saving sentient beings, even poor and humble people are even higher than those celebrities and nobles in his eyes, the articles that pursue Master Hongyi from the sea of suffering and praise his merits in practicing are mostly written by passengers of the tower ship passenger ships, which is not surprising and has no irony. But at the end, I want to quote the experience of a girl named Chen Yongan. She didn't know Master Hongyi, and she had never kissed him. She was just an orphan, and she lost her parents at the age of eight and was sent to the Quanzhou Ci Academy where the orphan was adopted.
If suffering is said to be a kind of practice, then the young Chen Yongan can be said to be in practice all the time, and her ascetic practice is more rigorous than Master Hongyi. Hongyi's daily vegetarian dishes still include raised cabbage, but Chen Yong'an and the orphans only have rotten vegetables or even bark:
" The papaya tree fell, remove the bark, take the core, and cut it into shreds, which is also a vegetable. The banana tree fell, remove the bark, take the core, and chop it is also a vegetable. Amaranth, after eating the leaves, the dried amaranth is salty, which is also a vegetable. Shepherd's purse, cauliflower, karibane, and sweet potatoes are salty, which is called "salted" Wait for the good dishes. "
In order to compete for the leftovers leftovers from the teacher, the orphans "boomed up, either grab the dishes with their hands, or scoop the rice with a spoon, or even the soup in the dishes, stretched their tongues and licked their spoons" - all kinds of suffering, no less than Yu Hongyi's hard practice of keeping the precepts, but there is no doubt that the suffering experienced by Chen Yongan has no other Buddhist principles than to prove that all sentient beings in the Buddhist scriptures are suffering. Of course, they had also heard of Master Hongyi's reputation. After all, this eminent monk who was looking up to the whole country was practicing in a temple near the Ci'anyuan.
But for them, that is another world, another ship in the sea of suffering.
It was just a chance cause and condition that Chen Yongan and these orphans were connected with the raft of Master Hongyi. That was after Master Hongyi's death, all the orphans in the courtyard were recruited to Chengtian Temple to recite scriptures for this eminent monk they had never met. At noon that day, the person who was preparing to make a plan brought a meal of noodle soup to the orphans.
This is the best meal she has ever had at the Chiayuan.
Master Hongyi’s statue of Nirvana·painted by Xia Enjing.
Written by/Li Xiaen
Edited by/Li Yongbo Walking Qingqingzi
Proofreading/Fu Chunyan Zhao Lin
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