Yan Junping (87 BC – c. 7 AD), originally surnamed Zhuang, given name Zun, was a native of Pi County, Shu County, Western Han Dynasty (also known as Linqiong), and later when the Eastern Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu wrote the Book of Han, he changed zhuang to Yan because he avoided the Han Ming Emperor Liu Zhuang and changed his name to Yan Junping.
Yan Junping was a Taoist scholar of the Western Han Dynasty, who was indifferent to fame and fortune all his life, and made a living by divining and teaching the I Ching and Lao Tzu's learning, and when he showed people divination in Chengdu, he would collect as long as he earned enough to live every day, "every day to get a hundred dollars, that is, to close the curtain".
Yan Junping hid in the city well, wrote a book and a saying, set up a museum in Pingle Mountain, PiXian County, taught disciples to preach the Taoist ideology of Lao Tzu, and wrote two volumes of "Notes on Lao Tzu", fourteen volumes of "Lao Tzu's Finger Return" and "Bone Marrow of the I Ching", making Lao Tzu's Taoist doctrine more systematic, methodical, and summarized at the philosophical level.
And because Yan Junping's original surname was Zhuang, he was always revered as "Zhuangzi" after his death, so most of the Zhuangzi doctrines circulated in later generations were also composed of the ideas of Yan Junping and Zhuang Zhou, and it is even very likely that people compiled them based on Yan Junping's deeds.
Yan Jun was indifferent in nature, so he enjoyed a high lifespan, living in his nineties in that era, and the Shuzhong Guangji and the Biography of Gao Shi said that he "knew astronomy, recognized astrology, was good at divination, and learned metaphysics."
Yan Junping also cultivated a generation of great Confucians- Yang Xiong, and after Yang Xiong became famous, he vigorously promoted the Taoist doctrine of his teacher Yan Junping, and Yan Junping's Taoist doctrine began to spread everywhere, and even affected the emergence of Later Taoism, like the lofty "Taishang Laojun" in Taoism, I am afraid that most of them have a lot to do with this long-lived Great Hidden Yan Junping.
Disciple Yang Xiong praised his teacher Yan Junping and said, "If you don't make a mistake, if you don't cure it, if you don't change your behavior for a long time, although you are easy-going, you can't do anything about it." ”
Yan Junping was good at easy calculations, predicting the two important historical events of "Wang Mang's usurpation of Han" and "Guangwu Zhongxing" more than 20 years in advance, coupled with the influence of his ideas on Taoism, by the Jin Dynasty, Yan Junping had become a god man who could know the heavenly opportunity in the pen of the literati.
In the "Natural History" written by Zhang Hua of the Western Jin Dynasty, there is such a magical legend: There is a person who took a boat up the big river, and at the end of the Tianhe River, he saw a woman weaving cloth, and her husband was holding a cow to drink water, he asked what place this was, the woman said that this is not the human world, you go back to Western Shu and ask Yan Junping to know where it is.
When the man returned, he found Yan Junping and asked him to solve the puzzle. Yan Junping said: In August, I saw the guest star invading the cowherd star and the Vega star, and I felt very strange in my heart, it turned out that it was the day you reached the heavenly constellation, and you had already reached the side of the sun and the moon!
It should be noted that at that time, Zhang Hua did not state in the book that the person who reached the Tianhe was Zhang Qian, but later he was attached to Zhang Qian as "chiseling through the western region". As a result, Yan Junping in the last years of the Western Han Dynasty became a person who could laugh and talk with Zhang Qian during the Han Wudi period.
Although this incident is absurd, it also proves from another aspect that Yan Junping is knowledgeable, famous, and respected by posterity, and Ban Gu also said in the Book of Han that Yan Junping "loved and respected the Shu people, and is still called Yan".
Yan Junping's life in the great cain was praised by many poets in later generations, and the great poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty also asked xian in his lifetime, and he praised Yan Junping's superb and derby sage in "Ancient Winds":
"Ancient Winds: Its Thirteenth"
Junping abandons both the world and junping.
Look at the poverty and change, explore the yuan and transform sentient beings.
Loneliness is embellished with Taoism, and empty curtains are closed to humor.
The ducks are not vain, and the partridges sometimes chirp.
An Zhi Tianhan, the day hangs high name.
The seafarer has been gone for a long time, and who is measured to sink into meditation.
The Tang Dynasty poet Cen Shan also had a poetry cloud:
"Yan JunPing Bu Huang"
JunPing had sold Bu, and Bu had been unscrupulous for a long time.
So far, the head of the staff money, all the time on the ground.
I don't know if the branch stone is still in the human world.
Yan Junping did not live his life, only living on the people of Bu Zheng, at that time, Bu Zheng belonged to the untouchable industry, why was this the case of a generation of high-ranking people? Yan Junping himself has an explanation: "Bu Zheng is a lowly karma, but it can benefit everyone." If there is an evil and unrighteous question, it is up to the turtle to say the stakes. With the Son of Man, according to filial piety, with the brother of man, with the words of the people, with the words of the people, and with the people, and with the people, they are good, and those who speak from me are more than halfway over. ”
To put it simply, Yan Junping can borrow people to explore the auspicious and evil blessings, seek the opportunity of future prosperity, and lead people to goodness because of the situation.
Gao Ren is indeed a High Man, no wonder future generations will regard Yan Junping as "Zhuangzi", and because of Yan Junping's high life and Daoist behavior, there is a overlap with "Taishang Laojun".