Qingming Festival is one of our most important traditional festivals, both a traditional festival and one of the twenty-four solar terms, as if only Qingming is gone. As a festival, when the time comes to the Qingming period, most parts of the mainland will return to the earth in spring, and everything will recover, which is the best period for peasant friends to cultivate in spring; as a festival, the Qingming Festival is an important festival to pay tribute to ancestors and remember ancestors, and is the link between the filial piety culture of the Chinese nation.
The custom of worshipping gods and ancestors dates back to ancient times. The sacrifice of the Son of Heaven to the heavens and the worship of the ancestors by the people are not only the spiritual sustenance, but also the foundation for the inheritance of Chinese civilization. Chinese beliefs, they prefer to believe in gods made up of ancestors, because ancestors directly bless themselves and their families. The culture of sacrifice makes Chinese more humble, more reverent, and the sense of family glory that is slowly cultivated from this will eventually make us pay more attention to the cultivation of virtue and the sense of purpose of striving upwards.
I admire that the ancestors of the ancients could integrate these spiritual positive energy, standardized and skillfully into the process of sacrifice, and slowly continue to this day.
The incense is one of the most important links in the sacrifice, and the process of incense burning is slow, during this slow time. People's spirits are easily separated from the daily tension and triviality, to recall the historical pictures of the ancestors when they were alive, to recall the various teachings of the ancestors, and to reflect on their daily behavior, which is itself a process of connecting the ancestors and repenting of the soul.
There seem to be many differences in the placement of sacrifices in different places and different historical time periods, but there must be one thing that remains unchanged, that is, it is very exquisite. It is necessary to match both yin and yang and the five elements, and this is the time to embody the knowledge and cognition of the sacrificial person. Chinese important rituals are related to eating, and the prototypes of ancient bronzes were mostly for the purpose of holding sacrifices for the gods to eat. In this process, people reverently meditate on their ancestors, which is a release of emotions and brings the ritual of sacrifice to a climax.
Burning paper money is also an important part of the sacrifice. In recent years, there have been many printed large stamps of the underground coin on the market, and people can directly use such a coin for burning conveniently, which seems to have lost the original intention of the sacrifice. Before this, Chinese believed more in their own stacking of yuanbao with paper money, the old people in the family were very skilled in stacking yuanbao, but the process of stacking gave people a very slow feeling, the silent action has reflected their remembrance of the deceased, some old people seem to be more like using the action of stacking yuanbao to replace crying and sadness. Compared with the direct burning of the underground coin, this way of stacking the yuan treasure should be more able to show the remembrance and gratitude of the ancestors, which seems to be more like the ancients want to pass it down.
The dominant concept of ancestor worship is filial piety, and filial piety culture is the foundation of the inheritance of Chinese civilization. The essence of filial piety is the gratitude of children to their parents, the sun is shining, the parents are so generous that we can't repay them all our lives.
For the reward of kindness, our most direct expression in form is to bow down. Kneeling is also a very important part of the sacrifice, during the New Year folk have the custom of prostrating their heads to worship the New Year, the new culture collides with traditional culture, thinking that this belongs to the feudal dross, there is no need, so this problem is also on the hot search. First of all, I think there is no such thing as a so-called bad habit and a new ritual, and that what seems to be old now has its rationality since it exists; and the so-called new thing is only a kind of existence at the moment, and maybe after many years, it may not survive at all, not even the qualifications for the contrast between the old and the new, and even if it survives, it may also belong to the bad habits of that time. There is no question of right or wrong, so why argue so much?
Gu Hongming, a scholar at the end of the Qing Dynasty, had an anecdote during his study in England. Perhaps it was also the time of Qingming, he placed the ancestral tablet on the table, and when he was burning incense and displaying the offerings, the landlady saw it and laughed and said, "Mr. Gu, when will your ancestors smell these chickens, ducks, and fish meat you have placed?" At this time, he replied, "When your ancestors could smell the flowers you placed in front of the tomb." "Such an answer is really very wonderful, your flowers, my burning paper, there is no priority and backwardness; your bow, my kneeling, there is no distinction between high and low.
The kneeling session in the sacrifice, and the burning of incense, the placement of offerings, and the burning of paper, the whole down is a complete set of emotional experiences. When bowing down, people bow their heads, lose their identities, and naturally let go of all kinds of arrogance and rudeness in life, this process seems to be more like the process of surrendering to various negative energies in their hearts while showing sincere sacrifices to their ancestors. Just like the pilgrimage in Tibet, it is a ritual, a spiritual pillar, and a process of mind cultivation.
Thanks to the grace of parents, grateful for the guidance and protection of ancestors, grateful for the nourishment of heaven and earth, and having and constantly cultivating a grateful heart, we will love life, love life, love nature, and love the earth and the universe on which we live, which should also be the cultural meaning of the Qingming Festival.