□ Gan MinQiu
In the cold season of the Year of the Ox, he was given a new book by teacher Huang Yaohong, "All the Way Back home".
I've already brushed some of the articles in the book on my phone. When you get a new book and slowly flip through it, the binding design that complements the atmosphere of the article quickly brings people into an immersive reading. Only then did I deeply feel the harm of daily fragmentation and shallow reading.
Idle books should be idle reading. During the Spring Festival holiday, I took this book back to my hometown and also experienced the situation of returning home.
One
After nearly ten years of socializing with Brother Yao Hong, he has never seen a moment of impatience or complaint, and his humble gentleman's elegant atmosphere has infected many people.
The book "All the Way Back to Hometown" in hand, together with the previous "Wu Tu Wu Xiang" and "Heaven and Earth Have Festivals", all show his elegance and wisdom. The heart is full of beauty, gentle to the world, will write such an elegant work with such a delicate brushstroke.
Open this collection of essays, the attachment to the grass and trees of the hometown, the thoughts of the old friends of relatives and friends, the ultimate thinking of where the heart belongs... As far as the eye can see, they have condensed the care for life and become emotional natural things. Brother Yao Hong, with his consistent delicate perception, told us. It is also like a superb videographer, using the lens to capture the peach blossom flowing water in front of the eaves of the house, creating a poetic hometown in a picture full of affection.
In this ordinary expression, it often inadvertently rises to a taste of life and resonates. It's like looking for someone to scratch his back, and just when you can't accurately describe where the itch is in words, he has scratched the itch accurately. as:
Suddenly, I felt that my mother's way of expressing time was so special, she never said how many minutes, but said that the root was fragrant for a long time, the bowl was long for tea, and the meal was long. Her time is her life. (Mother's Sauerkraut)
"Some people don't like its sour taste, but in fact, those green beings have begun to be treasured in a sour way." ("Mother's Sauerkraut")
……
Illustration from "All the Way Home".
The mountains and rivers of the hometown are the natural bond of family ties. This mountain and this water have been seen by my ancestors, my fathers have seen it, and my generation has seen it. The night talk of the hearth, these are the common topics that cannot be talked about endlessly. The opening chapter of "White Fruit Tree" tells the past of several generations from my grandfather in my hometown of Tangpo. An old tree that carries the common memory of generations.
A few years ago, Brother Yao Hong repeatedly talked about his father's influence on him. A year after his father's death, he talked about his father's life at a dinner table, and he cried uncontrollably. The deep love between father and son can be seen everywhere in "All the Way Home".
I read a lot, and I have the impression that there is a Shi Tiesheng who misses his relatives in the description of daily scenes. "Acacia Tree", "Me and the Temple of Earth", "Autumn Memories"... Shi can see missing his mother everywhere in the text. Contrasting "White Fruit Tree" with Shi's "Acacia Tree", the latter is more dignified and has more hardships of life, the former is more timeless, and more is an aftertaste of life.
This may be closely related to the author's childhood. Shi Tiesheng was disabled as soon as he reached adulthood, and his mother died of a serious illness in her 40s, and she did not have time to witness her son's achievements. Physical and spiritual pain accompanied Shi Tiesheng all his life, so he often used philosophical thinking to forcibly relieve the suffering of life:
"The material heaven is doomed to be difficult, and the spiritual paradise is established in the middle of the direction, and the eternal limit is the basis for its eternal establishment." "What man cannot do is a limitation, that is, a disability, and it has never left." ("Sick Gap Broken Pen")
And Yao Hong's brother Xiao Chengting training, from the book can also see his family origin. At that time, it was not easy to receive a complete higher education, and the family was harmonious, and there were many wise and handsome relatives. His father passed away on a high life, and brother Yao Hong had already achieved great things, which was the best consolation for family affection.
Reading Shi Tiesheng's articles, I often feel the coolness of autumn, like a gust of autumn wind whizzing into my sleeve, "The situation is too clear, and I can't live for a long time." "Like the small stone pond in Liu Zongyuan's pen, it is not a place where you can stay for a long time.
Reading Yao Hong's article, you feel the warmth of spring, such as lying under the warm sun, a cup of tea, not doing xuan talk and meditation, just place your soul in this warm nature. It is also like looking at Zhao Mengfu's words, "In the flower dance wind, the clouds are born under the eyes", which contains the breath of life everywhere.
Shi Tiesheng spent his whole life healing his childhood, and Brother Yao Hong used his childhood to warm his life.
Two
When he chatted with Brother Yao Hong on weekdays, he also said that there is a difference between body and soul when returning to his hometown.
The hometown in "All the Way Back to Hometown" is a kind of spiritual resting place, and it is "suddenly enlightened" after "exhausting the water source".
In his pen, the hometown represents warmth and light:
"Mulberry can raise silkworms, silkworms can spit silk, silk can weave brocade, and mulberry brings warmth to the world." ...... As for the catalpa tree, the ancients planted it in front of and behind the house, intending to use its resin as a lighting object. The mulberry is there, the warmth is there; the zi is there, the light is there. Isn't the so-called hometown a warm and bright soul soothing? (Mulberry)
In the article "Where is the Taoyuan", he even raised the homecoming to a very beautiful state of life:
"As long as human beings continue to pursue love and beauty, spring will always bloom peach blossoms, and "Peach Blossom Origin" is destined to be a classic that settles the heart." ...... The idyllic scenery in Tao Yuanming's writings has more enduring humanity. It is intertwined with the Confucian sentiment of ruling the world, the transcendent aura of the Tao, and the Buddha's view of life and death. ...... His spiritual world lies in constantly returning to himself, in keeping his ambitions in the way of 'self-pleasure' and 'self-entertainment': picking chrysanthemums in the South Mountain, ascending to the heights and shouting, writing piano books to dispel worries, not worrying or afraid. Only this state of life allowed him to merge into all things in heaven and earth. ”
In this passage, Brother Yao Hong is interpreting Tao Yuanming, but also interpreting himself.
Hometown is the place where we were born and grew up, and here we place our original intentions. Attachment to our hometown makes us question the origin of the world and the destination of life. Returning to our hometown is to remember the way back from society to ourselves. Of course, people cannot escape from society, but they must always remember the way home, and if they have the bright light of their hometown in their hearts, they will not lose their way and will not sink in the noise of the world.
Reading this book, I suddenly understood why Zen masters often use the metaphor of "hometown" to self-nature, and use the metaphor of "returning home" and "going home" to become enlightened.
Zen masters talk about "returning to the light" and "arriving home empty-handed", which means withdrawing the vision of outward exploration and returning to one's own heart. But knowing one's own mind, there is no need to ask for it, and there is nothing on the surface, but in fact there is refuge. The LengYan Sutra also says, "It is as if someone travels far away because of an incident and has not yet returned it, and knows the way to return to his home." ”
There is a Zen poem that says it well, "The world is tedious, and the empty door turns to credit." Green pine forest under the guests, how many have to go home? In this busy and complicated world, many people go farther and farther, and how many people can get the joy of "returning home"?
Huang Tingjian once wrote "The Poem of Pang Jushi of Hanshan Zi", and I was deeply impressed by one of the sentences, "Return to the source to know the self-nature, and the self-nature is like coming." "Only by returning to one's own origin can we know the original intention; and keeping the original intention also opens the door of wisdom."
Isn't returning home the source?
Epistemologically, not only Zen scholars, but also Confucianism have invariably emphasized the practice of inward study. Mencius said that education lies in awakening the original mind, later Generations of Confucians talked about "restoration", "restoration of its beginning", "restoration of the old", Taoists said "please follow its roots" and "return to simplicity", whether it is moral cultivation or religious cultivation, it lies in the understanding of the nature of the mind, once you understand this mind, you can become holy, enlightened, and become a Buddha.
In recent years, I have written Huang Tingjian's characters and read Huang Tingjian's poems, and this time I looked at "All the Way Back to My Hometown", and I couldn't help but think of one of Huang's poems, which was his "Two Poems of Peach and Apricot Blossoms Painted by Wang You in the Title of Wang Jushi", one of which wrote, "Ling Yun smiled and saw peach blossoms, and he began to arrive home in thirty years." Since then, after the spring wind and spring rain, chaos has flowed to the end of the world. "Home is within reach, it is this shore, the end of the world is far away, it is the other shore." When you smile, you are at the end of the world.
Writing here, I found that the 28 words of the old man in the valley had exhausted my feelings of reading "All the Way Back home". Leisurely heart will be there, regardless of ancient and modern, far and near.
Coincidentally, the "one way" in the title of the book also means "together" and "walking together" in my hometown dialect. On this road of returning to their hometowns and pursuing "home", in fact, everyone is not alone.