Wang Xizhen, a 23-year-old female Taoist priest, announced that she was about to be feathered, and nearly 100,000 people watched.
Since the birth of mankind, there has been no stop in the pursuit of life, and now we can extend our life as much as possible through diet, science and other ways, but people in ancient times could only seek the method of immortality from some religions.
Buddhism emphasizes the cycle of cause and effect, while Taoism, as our number one indigenous religion, is the feathering of ascension through cultivation. If we put it up to now, most of us will think that this is a feudal superstition, but in ancient times, many people believed in it.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a female Taoist monk, who is said to have practiced for several years and finally achieved something, announcing to the world at the age of 23 that she was going to be feathered. The most important thing is that this incident has attracted tens of thousands of people to watch. So, what happened to this female Taoist priest in the end? Is it really feathered? Let's take a look at it together.
Female Taoist wang Xizhen
In fact, in ancient times, there were nothing more than two kinds of people who wanted to cultivate and become immortals, one was a person with high authority, who was not satisfied with a short life span, and wanted to live longer, such as many emperors; The other is the poor people who have a hard life and can't find a way out, and want to use it to find comfort.
However, the female Taoist monk we are going to talk about this time does not belong to either, and her cultivation is because her feelings are not smooth. This female Taoist priest is called Wang Xizhen, Wang Xizhen was born in the Taicang Wang family, the Wang family we should all have heard of, is a famous family family. Although Wang Xizhen's family is only a side branch, it is already a famous local scholar.
The Wang family attaches great importance to the education of children, even women will ask someone to teach them to read, so Wang Xizhen has been familiar with reading the Four Books and Five Classics since she was a child, and at that time she lived a superior, unrestrained and very happy life.
However, her mother fell ill because she gave birth to her, and then her health deteriorated, and finally died when she was five years old. The death of her mother brought a great blow to Wang Xizhen, she was very guilty, thinking that she had harmed her mother, and then she became more and more silent and lonely, unwilling to talk to people.
The other siblings in the family did not like her solitary personality, so they gradually isolated her. Wang Xizhen had nothing to do and hid in her room every day to read. Among these books, her favorite is the Taoist classics, and she can always find a little comfort in the words of LaoZi, Zhuangzi and others.
With the growth of day by day, Wang Xizhen reached the age of marriage, and the marriage of ancient women followed the orders of their parents, and Wang Xizhen was naturally no exception. Her father soon found a door-to-door man for her.
Wang Xizhen did not want to marry, but she could not choose herself, so she still obeyed her father's orders to meet this man, but what she did not expect was that the person her father selected for her unexpectedly met Wang Xizhen's wishes, not only was he polite and polite, but also very knowledgeable.
Both of them like to read, so there are many common topics, and the parents of both sides see that they get along well and settle the marriage. Wang Xizhen felt happier than ever. Just when she thought she was about to usher in a happy life, bad news suddenly came.
Her fiancé died unexpectedly, which was undoubtedly a thunderbolt on a sunny day for Wang Xizhen, and the society at that time was very taboo about these, and there were many remarks. Many people think that Wang Xizhen is ominous, Kemu and Kefu, although the Wang family tried their best to prevent these remarks from reaching Wang Xizhen, but there is no impermeable wall in the world, and Wang Xizhen finally heard these rumors.
Monastic monasticism
But she didn't care about that anymore, and she had no intention of remarrying since her fiancé's death. After thinking about it for a while, she decided to leave home and go deep into the mountains to devote herself to monasticism.
Her father saw that she had made up his mind, knew that this was the best choice, and agreed to her request. After that, Wang Xizhen bid farewell to her parents and took some entanglements to travel around, looking for the mountains.
During her trip, she met an old Taoist monk, who saw that she was traveling with a woman, so she went forward to inquire, and after learning of her encounter, the old Taoist priest enlightened her, and then recommended to her a Taoist temple not far away.
Wang Xizhen came to the Taoist Temple with the guidance of lao Dao, only to learn that this old Dao was actually the abbot of the Taoist temple and a very famous Local Taoist monk, and at this time Wang Xizhen did not want to travel anymore, so he worshiped this old Dao as a teacher and began formal cultivation. The master gave her a Dharma name called Tan Yangzi.
Wang Xizhen was familiar with the Taoist classics from an early age, and she was also very wise, and the old Dao cultivated her as a successor. Therefore, after the Dao Fa gradually became more advanced, he asked her to preach the scriptures around and preach the Dao Fa, and soon her name spread.
In ancient times, both female monks and female Taoists were very rare, not to mention such a young female Taoist who was so deeply practicing, so many people who believed in Taoism came to listen to her preaching, and even some people recorded the content of her story and compiled it into a book.
As his fame grew wider and wider, Wang Xizhen finally found the meaning of his existence and began to put away his apprentices, hoping to spread Taoism, many of whom were local celebrities.
But the fame is also easy to attract some doubts, and many people doubt her, thinking that she is a woman in her twenties how she can have such a high moral behavior.
In this regard, Wang Xizhen chose to use her strength to prove herself, so she declared to the outside world that she was going to feather, and invited everyone to come to watch, as soon as this word came out, it immediately caused a sensation, you know, although there are many legends, but no one has really seen what feathering is like. So this matter was passed on ten times, ten times a hundred, and publicized. In the end, it attracted more than 100,000 people to watch.
Hafa Tosen
On this day, countless cultivators and ordinary people gathered here to surround Wang Xizhen and want to witness this miracle. Wang Xizhen did not panic when she saw this scene, and very calmly sat down cross-legged and began to meditate.
People stared at the female Taoist priest tightly, afraid that they would miss it in the blink of an eye. But after waiting for a while, she didn't find any reaction, and began to talk about it, speculating whether she had been deceived.
Wang Xizhen did not react at all to the movements of the outside world. Just when everyone thought that she had failed and was ready to leave, someone suddenly noticed that Wang Xizhen's lips began to turn purple, and her face turned pale, as if she had feathered.
Everyone did not dare to come forward, for fear of disturbing the immortals, and for a moment they did not know what to do. But what he did not expect was that this incident actually alarmed the Jiajing Emperor, who was also addicted to cultivation at that time, and after hearing about this incident, he immediately sent someone to transport Wang Xizhen's body to the palace.
Later, after being diagnosed by the Tai Doctor, it was found that the reason why Wang Xizhen's lips were purple was not because of her feathering, but because of heavy metal poisoning, which was precisely because of taking too much Dan medicine, which led to her death.
However, because the Jiajing Emperor was also practicing Dan and taking medicine at that time, the Tai Doctors did not dare to tell the truth, and this matter was concealed. It was not until later that the Longqing Emperor succeeded to the throne that the truth came out.
epilogue
There is no art of immortality in the world, and the feathered Dengxian is just a Taoist yearning for the beauty of death, and there are many Taoist doctrines that are worth learning and understanding, but this kind of feudal superstition is still unavoidable.