Zen things, how to say, when you are full of food it is philosophy, when you are hungry it is political science, when you are half hungry it is economics.
1
Hengkuan is probably the poorest monk I have ever met.
His temple was really broken enough, and he hadn't picked it up since his master's death, and there were no pilgrims at all. Although this place is still geographically considered the territory of Emei Mountain, it has nothing to do with the tourist attraction in everyone's impression, and it actually belongs to Shawan District and crosses counties. The mountain in Mount Emei is very humid, and the sandstone slabs are always quickly covered with moss, which is a place where it is easy to haunt mountain spirits and water monsters.
Hengkuan himself is wearing an authentic "hundred clothes", and the kind that the monks outside always like to wear, obviously the material is good, it is two different things to decorate a few patches, his hundred clothes were made by the master when he just started jumping up, and then he grew a cut, the master gave him a layer below, a total of 5 layers, patches stacked with patches.
Heng Kuan was the kind of person who was born a monk, he had never had a lay name at all, and he was placed at the gate of the temple just after birth, and his master adopted him. At that time, the temple was not so depressed, the road at the gate was still a relatively important road, there were many people coming and going, and it was later that the national highway was built at the foot of the mountain and the highway was built, and this road was completely deserted. Hengkuan's biological parents put him in a basket and put it at the gate of the temple at night, and his master has been feeding him, and when he becomes an adult, he officially becomes a monk.
He did not have a high education, went to high school, did not pass the college entrance examination and did not repeat it, so he became a monk in the temple of his master. Yes, the little Shami in the temple also has to receive nine-year compulsory education, and when the age of going to school, the village head, the women's director, and the principal of the primary school will come and go to urge them one by one. Hengkuan's master also did not want him to be a monk, and let him go to the town below the mountain to go to high school after finishing junior high school, but Hengkuan's talent was not good, and he did not enter the university to return to inherit his master's mantle.
So Hengkuan is different from the monks and Taoists I have written about before, like the Mingjue monk on another mountain dozens of kilometers away, he has a master's degree in geology, and there is a senior sister who has always been in love with him, the senior sister has money, and casually come over and sprinkle water to repaint all the statues in the temple with a golden body. Hengkuan's temple is in the mountains, and where there are any rich seniors, even the people in the village are about to leave. His most popular year is the Spring Festival and Qingming, and there are many people who come back to the grave to worship their ancestors, and many of them are his friends who have caught mud loaches and yellow eels together since he was a child, and these friends have helped him a little something.
The difference is that the friends caught the loach and caught the yellow eel and returned home, and Hengkuan returned to the temple, and his master had to move the abstinence and give him a good meal. Therefore, Hengkuan has not been particularly gregarious since childhood, and the whole person looks very woody, and there are not many friends.
Hengkuan's main source of livelihood is self-farming. His household registration is in the village, of course, there are also contracted fields, but he has been a vegetarian since he was a child, his strength is small and he is not tall, and this place is all terraces. The terraces are particularly laborious to weigh, and it takes a lot of effort to move large and small agricultural tools to the field and bring the harvested grain back.
Sichuan's rice harvesting is called "threshing", and one of the tools used is called "wrenching barrel", which is actually a square large wooden barrel, and a strong man like me can carry it to the ground alone, but Hengkuan will not work. Hengkuan always asked Uncle Shao from the family next to the temple to help him carry it to the ground together, he beat the grain, and asked Uncle Shao to help him carry it back.
That's probably it.
Hengkuan terraces, from the beginning of the worry about irrigation, sowing seeds, planting, management, harvesting, he resolutely did not use pesticides, how this harvest is miserable.
2
Hengkuan has always lived by farming in this way, and the incense money is almost negligible. In the past, we said that the rural left-behind population was called the "993861" troops, 99 Chongyang Festival, the elderly; 38 Women's Day, housewives; 61 Children's Day, children. Now it is easy for women in the city to work, to work as waiters in restaurants than in the countryside to earn money, it is much easier for children to go to school, and most of the worries are also taken with them, and some old people have also followed to the city, and there are almost no people in the countryside. Even if there are people, the master in the temple has been teasing clams in your yard with his bare ass since he was a child, do you think he has some "Taoism"?
Hengkuan's master passed away in 14 years, and after his death, some old good men and women still went to the temple to burn incense, but these old people gradually disappeared. Hengkuan's own personality is also woody, and it is impossible for him to run out to work as a monk, so he lives in his broken temple and farms as usual. There is no problem in daily life, he himself is also a vegetarian, and there are no expenses, but he can get by.
But don't think about what modern life is.
The only "household appliance" in his temple was an electric lamp and a rice cooker. When his master was still there, although the two masters and apprentices were also vegetarians, the dishes still had to be stir-fried, and they had to be boiled in a pot, and then poured rapeseed oil, stir-fried, and put salt crobean paste. Master is gone, Hengkuan's brain doesn't know what to think, anyway, these things are mixed together when eaten into the stomach, so why did they separate them in the first place? So his rice cooker has a special personality, rice, water, rapeseed oil, salt croton and beess leaves cooked together and eaten.
It's probably the scariest cooking I've ever seen.
Hengkuan's vows are very, very strict, even a bit of a "tendon", and this is the person who does not appear in this article, but is very important: the influence of his master.
His master is not only his nominal master, but also his spiritual teacher and his parent in life. His master himself is a very strict person who abides by the precepts, he naturally engraves the precepts in his bones, he still strictly abides by the "do not catch money commandment", does not eat meat, other modern things are not useful, only look at the food ingredient list. When others come to see the food he sends, he must carefully read the food ingredient list to confirm that there is no meat before eating. Many people go to the temple to like to offer saqima, in fact, saqima has lard in it, which is not suitable and is not strictly vegetarian.
Although Heng Kuan did not go to college, he actually has a high level of cultural literacy because he has very, very much free time. He doesn't have to go to nightclubs, he doesn't need to socialize, there are no fox friends to usher in, and after planting, he goes back to the temple to read his few scriptures, some are time, and the most important thing is time. He didn't even take much care of the dog in his temple, and the poor dog, who hoped that someone would stroke it, danced happily every time I went.
Every time Hengkuan chanted, he drove it out to play by himself, and there was a circle in the doggy village, a circle in the mountain, and there were no people in the entire village, so he had to run to the front hall to accompany the four King Kongs in frustration. The four King Kong are obviously not good playmates, not only their grinning appearance is fierce, but they also can't move, which is not much different from a pile of construction waste.
Heng Kuan read the sutras in the monk's room where he lived with his master before, pondering some things that he had eaten and pondered, whether it was wind movement or movement or heart movement. Those sutras were also obtained by him when he ran to the "Dharma Logistics Office" in other big temples outside the mountain, and the so-called "monks" in those big temples saw that he was so poor that he was covered in patches, with a sour smell, and he was not ready to give money, often throwing him a blank eye and not being good at talking about him, he cheekily went to pick it up and didn't care what others thought of him.
Take it back to the temple, close the door and look at it, the dog has to sigh, gray and run to play by himself, I guess it has begun to ponder whether to simply become a stray dog.
3
I know Hengkuan, in fact, through one of my fans, is a cadre from Shawan District, and went to Hengkuan's village to serve as a poverty alleviation cadre of the village-based team. Yes, monks also have to help the poor. Poverty alleviation, as long as your household registration is here, you are a poor person, then you have to help the poor, no matter what your religious beliefs are, there is no difference between you believing in Buddhism, believing in Christianity, and believing in Islam, even if it is a cult, first correct and then help the poor, anyway, it is to help the poor.
The fan is called Lao Wu, who first went to Hengkuan's village to do precise poverty alleviation, and found Hengkuan at a glance. Hengkuan is the only young and middle-aged poor person in this village, the whole family is his household registration book is he alone, according to the family income, he must be the poorest one in the village, his savings are very, very simple: 0. There is no guarantee, no endowment insurance, no medical insurance, no dime of annual income, and up to 3,000 yuan a year according to grain conversion. He does not do a side job, let alone raise pigs and chickens, so he grows millet and vegetables to eat.
Who do you not support?
But Hengkuan's attitude is also very simple: one word, no.
He feels that he is not a poor person, because if he is empty of all four, and if all four are empty, there is no desire. Poor or not poor depends on how much you want, if your desires are not satisfied, you are called poor, and monks cannot be considered poor. Lao Wu is a party member of the post-70s, rooted in the red roots, and Hengkuan is a chicken and duck talking about their own words, every time he goes to find Hengkuan, Hengkuan says "Amitabha Buddha", turns his head and closes the chanting, so angry that Lao Wu rolls his eyes.
It was at this time that I met Hengkuan, Lao Wu found me, I am also a party member, I don't believe in Buddhism, but I am still interested in Zen things, and I understand a little. Lao Wu told me to "play", but in fact he played a fart and got me to persuade Hengkuan when he arrived.
Hengkuan still said "Amitabha Buddha", and as soon as the door closed, Lao Wu was so angry that he and I rolled their eyes together.
Of course, Lao Wu can't directly give poverty alleviation funds to Hengkuan, so what's the matter, right? He can only do other poverty alleviation while slowly grinding with Hengkuan. I didn't care, I just went sightseeing, and when I had nothing to do, I ran to the temple of Hengkuan. Although this temple is broken, the scenery is very, very good, in front of the layers of Er'e Mountain, and it looks like an ink painting on a cloudy day. Hengkuan didn't care about me, I just drank tea in his yard and petted the dog, and his dog was so happy to see me rolling around.
Slowly there was communication, every time I went to carry a jar of soy protein powder, Hengkuan had to supplement some protein, he would kill himself sooner or later. Hengkuan did not reject this point, and he was very grateful, so he was willing to sit down and chat with me, and no longer said "Amitabha Buddha" closed the door to see off guests.
I don't agree with Hengkuan's "four are empty". Whether you are five or four, it belongs to a simplified model of the universe, which is essentially a "spherical chicken in a vacuum", which is the same thing as the "frictionless little slider" in high school physics class. In essence, on top of the simplified model, there are complex models, such as wind. Theoretically, wind is the flow of particles, as long as we know the action of each particle, we master the wind and know everything about the wind.
But it's practically impossible.
If it were that simple, then fluid mechanics would not exist. In the Buddhist scriptures, the phrase "wind movement" is over, but there are two words of wind movement, and there are countless doorways in it.
Since it is Zen, then pay attention to a "wisdom", you can't just chant the sutra and finish it, it's not a matter of "brushing blessings", you have to figure it out, right? Are you confused and don't understand what is called "wisdom"?
Whether it is wind movement or banner movement, I am afraid that a "heartbeat" cannot be explained. The wind blows, your heart moves, you don't move, it moves, how exactly moves? You have to build a wind tunnel to blow the model.
Of course, you can't ask the Buddhist scriptures to list Bernoulli's equations for you, let alone require that every temple have a wind tunnel to study the philosophical problems of the wind flag. In essence, pilgrims will not come to see your wind tunnel model, monks do not rely on the study of aerodynamics to eat, if they do so, the Indian Air Force will not be so crotch-pulling, they must be the world's first air force, not the "half-fall" for a few years.
So I say, Zen things, eating enough is philosophy, going hungry is political science, half starving is economics.
4
Hengkuan can't argue with me.
But Hengkuan's quality is still very good, he can't argue that I won't be angry, but he brought out his big pot of confusion and served me lunch. As long as he brings out his pot of hell-level dark cooking works, I must have fled from the desert, and I went to find Lao Wu Rub Baijia Rice is also better than this.
Of course, Heng Kuan himself couldn't argue and I couldn't listen to what I said, but I found that he actually still had a desire, he wanted to inherit his master's mantle, at least not let his temple collapse in his hands.
Man is a strange thing, a monk is a person, a monk is not a Buddha.
Since he is a human being, human nature must exist, and Hengkuan's feelings for his master are not simply masters and apprentices, he has a strong sense of responsibility to his father. All kinds of weeds in Emei Mountain grow madly day and night, but his master's grave is cleanly taken care of, and there will never be weeds growing indiscriminately, which can be seen. It is a pity that nature will eventually take back everything and give birth again, and Buddhism, Buddhist scriptures, people, and architecture cannot escape this.
Becoming and living in bad emptiness is also.
Hengkuan's temple will inevitably go to decline, the master is gone, popularity is even more scarce, any house, whether you are a temple or a private house, as long as you lack popularity, it will soon go to inevitable decline. Grass and moss will begin to grow in the cracks in the walls and tiles, and then these nasty things will squeeze the gaps wider and wider, and the water will burrow into them and soon collapse.
The wind, the movement, the heartbeat, you can't move, these things will happen.
Hengkuan wants to keep his temple, the temple left to him by his master, monks at home, there is no difference in people with Hengkuan's status, this temple is his home, and it is also the place where he became a monk, what do you say? He has been like this since he can remember, and the familiar memories are constantly aging and collapsing, is he out of home?
That's easy, right?
I told Hengkuan, you should save some money and repair your temple. At first, Hengkuan was still hard-mouthed, and the monastic temple collapsed and the Dharma was there, and later he was silent.
In 18 years, Hengkuan completely accepted poverty alleviation. That year, Uncle Shao could no longer move the wrench bucket for him, and Uncle Shao also put on crutches and dragged half of his legs to walk. Hengkuan had no choice but to go to the field to cut the rice by himself, cut it home and beat it in the wrench, Lao Wu said to get him a human thresher he didn't do it, a word Amitabha worshiped you.
This delays farming.
There was a lot of rain during the rice harvest season that year, and there was already a lot of rain in the mountains, and the moisture was particularly heavy, especially in 18 years. Hengkuan went to the field to cut rice by himself, moved back to the temple one by one, and fought by himself in the yard, which delayed a lot of effort. The rice thing must be "rushed to harvest", you have to hurry, otherwise the rice grains will directly germinate on the rice. Hit it down and dry it immediately, take advantage of the good weather to quickly dry it and put it in the granary, otherwise the same germinates.
Hengkuan had just hit most of the grain, and it was rainy and rainy, and he didn't have much strength alone, and the grain simply didn't have time to spread the sun. Uncle Shao ran to help him turn the grain itself, his legs and feet were not good, and it did not play a big role, the rain in early autumn came quickly, a rain fell, and all the grain of constant width was soaked.
At that time, Lao Wu was helping other elderly people in the village to grab grain, and by the time he could take care of Hengkuan, it was over.
Hengkuan's one-year harvest is all the soup and soup water, Lao Wu can only drain the water with Hengkuan and the two, and then spread it out in front of the four kings in the front hall to dry, whether it is dry or not depends on the will of heaven. The rain did not stop, the next day was full of uproar, the third day was dripping, the fourth day was much bigger, and on the fifth day, Hengkuan's one-year harvest was completely finished. By the time Lao Wu called me up the mountain, there was not a single grain left, and the Maitreya Buddha was grinning, and the four kings were grinning, and the whole hall smelled of wine.
Hengkuan sat in the yard crying, crying loudly, and Lao Wu persuaded him with an umbrella for him. When I arrived, the rain still didn't mean to stop, the whole sky was as dark as the inkstone, and dark clouds in all directions rushed here, tangled together.
The eight winds blow so hard that you can't move, see how it blows. As far as Su Dongpo is concerned, the high-level resident who boasted that "the eight winds do not move, and the purple golden lotus sits upright" is not yet "a fart across the river".
5
When the harvest is finished, I have to find a way for Hengkuan to live, and he will definitely not be able to go down the mountain to work, but I want him to go to the temple of Mingjue to hang up the order. Mingjue that this person has a good heart and actually has money, and that rich senior sister secretly poked and poked at him and gave him a lot of things that he didn't use himself. Mingjue agreed without hesitation when he heard this, and personally ran over to pick up Hengkuan.
But Hengkuan didn't do it, and Hengkuan went to live in Mingjue's Hanchuan Temple for two days and ran back, and he wanted to guard his master's temple and tomb. He also explained that in Jue's temple, "Master Mingkong" murdered him, and "Mingkong" was actually a monkey, except Mingjue, everyone was fierce, even me, and he also scratched his hands.
I had to sell his sprouted rice to the winery for sake brewing, and the money from the sale was bought into rice for Hengkuan, but it didn't last a few months.
I said that you can't do this anymore, you can't grow land alone with this physique, you still have to think of some way. Although you don't catch money, but Lao Wu or Uncle Shao can help you, Uncle Shao's son is doing business outside the mountain, the road is very wide, you do some side business to earn some money, so that you can maintain your temple. Hengkuan did not close the door and bow to Amitabha again this time, but nodded, which was regarded as acquiescence.
Lao Wu said, you don't have a way to raise chickens, you give it to Hengkuan. Many of the land in the village is no longer planted, and all kinds of fruit trees are planted, which is indeed very suitable for raising chickens, and it is not a problem to tell the owner to raise chickens for Hengkuan. My method is to collect chicken manure, mix it with all kinds of agricultural garbage such as straw residue, raise earthworms and feed them to the chickens, the quality of the chicken will be very good, and the eggs will be very beautiful.
Hengkuan does not do it, Hengkuan said this offense. I said that you did not kill this, the chicken was raised by you, and you did not kill it. Hengkuan just doesn't do it, he said that he can't stand the thought that these chickens will be killed, and I can't help him, so I can only accompany Lao Wu and the two of them.
Hengkuan's temple is really not good, a lot of wood is about to decay, you can see that Hengkuan is also panicking.
The reality is cruel and cold, you either exchange the Dharma for money, or you keep the Dharma and go hungry. Hengkuan is a monk, if you beat him to death, he refuses to break his vows, let alone exchange the Dharma for money, he has his perseverance, you have no way. Is it possible to be accommodating? As long as you are willing to be accommodating, the Dharma is that dead people are alive, mouths grow on people, brains grow on people, how do you say how others believe, I don't believe Buddha can still jump up and smoke your big mouth?
You say that wind movement is wind movement, you say that banner movement is banner movement, and you say heart movement is heart movement.
Half-starved Hengkuan, what is needed now is economics. He has neither philosophy nor political science, and Buddhism, especially the Dharma taught by his master, does not allow him to follow the path of political science, and his empty stomach and the temple that is about to collapse do not allow him to follow the path of philosophy, so what can be done?
6
That rain fell ah, overwhelming, long and dense, miserable clouds, enduring, when the rain stopped, it felt that the whole world was different, mountains are still mountains, trees are still trees, people are still people, but it always feels different.
When the sun finally showed its face, the moisture evaporated, and a hot paste was sticky and muggy on the person, but finally saw the sky. The sky was blue and faint, and something moved in people's hearts.
I went to Hengkuan's temple, ready to persuade him for the last time to raise chickens, and just entered the courtyard, I saw a clump of fungus growing from the pillar of his front hall.
A flower and five leaves bloom one after another, and all the magic hearts are not stained.
I had an epiphany.
I teach Constant Beam fungus.
Fungus is actually not difficult, you make a land, thick application of bottom fertilizer. Then get some green wood segments, that is, oak trees sawed into small segments, use an electric drill to drill a small hole to plant the fungus, paste the thin mud into the ground, maintain the right temperature and humidity, and soon the mycelium will grow all over the wood. Finally, adjust the temperature and humidity, and the fungus will grow.
Aoka wood is used because this wood is finely wooden, and the lignin content is particularly high, and it can produce fungus many times. Those loosely woody wood will be bad in a few times, while green wood can be produced for two years, and timely fertilizer replenishment can be harvested all the time.
Hengkuan pedantic is pedantic, but it has not reached the level of "killing" fungi, which he has no opinion on. I took care of the business chain for him, he only planted fungus, and Uncle Shao's son underwrote it. He also doesn't need to tinker with his terraces, just on the barren mountain behind the temple Uncle Shao, the terrain is flat, it is no problem to clean up and build a fungus greenhouse, and it is easy to take care of it closely.
Lao Wu and I each took out a thousand yuan to lend him, and Ming Jue paid two thousand yuan to sponsor, and Uncle Shao sponsored the land. We went to the bottom of the mountain to buy greenhouse accessories, and built a fungus greenhouse for him with seven hands and eight feet, equipped with a spray head to adjust humidity, a stove for temperature control. Hengkuan himself is also very willing to learn, I dragged him to my friend's mushroom farm to study, others look at him a monk in a hundred clothes think it is so strange, monks still learn to grow fungus...
But it's also a blessing.
7
I have always felt that enlightenment is not Buddhism's own thing, but that enlightenment is something that people do.
Hengkuan has what he needs to understand, I have mine, Lao Wu has Lao Wu's, Uncle Shao has Uncle Shao's, Mingjue has Mingjue, Mingkong has Mingkong, and you also have yours. Zen enlightenment is a very independent thing, there is not much to learn from, and the six ancestors can not give you much guidance. In fact, if you are serious about enlightenment, each of our enlightenment is a very personal thing, and it is difficult for you to ask anyone.
Constant width fungus is very simple, they are some fungi, they have a clear difference from people. Soon Hengkuan harvested the first batch of fungus, and then he harvested it continuously, took it to the stove to dry, put it in a sack, and carried it to the village committee where Lao Wu lived, and Lao Wu went down the mountain to do errands and took it to Uncle Shao's son to sell. Hengkuan's fungus quality is very good, he is also very attentive, the sales are not worried, change the money will be handed over to Uncle Shao for safekeeping, and when it is enough, he will repair the temple for Hengkuan piecemeal, and also buy the new agricultural cooperative pension insurance medical insurance for him.
I went to Hengkuan last year, and Hengkuan was sending fungus to the village committee, three whole bags of marijuana. I helped him carry one bag, he carried two bags, he looked a lot stronger, Uncle Shao's son helped him buy protein powder, the nutritional conditions were much better, although he was still that hell-level dark cook.
When the two of us arrived at the village committee, Lao Wu was engaged in a themed party day activity, and the content was very simple, that is, "learn to sing the Internationale". The village committee is very simple, there is no special study room, but a few rows of stools in the courtyard. There are not many party members, and there are no young party members, and Uncle Shao can be regarded as a "young party member". A group of old men and women sat on stools, Lao Wu took a notebook and connected to that kind of computer speaker to play accompaniment, and sang "The Internationale" with a group of old men and women while beating his own beat.
"It's not the wind, it's not the movement, it's not the heartbeat," I remembered the scene of that day. It was a sunny day, and the sun urged the ever-present fog in the Sichuan Basin, trying to climb up the mountain, and was pressed by the sun on the ridgeline, fluttering and restless. The wind was driven up the mountain by the sun, first hissing on the metasequoia trees, then whizzing on the party flag.
Is it wind? Is it a move? Is it a heartbeat?
Of course, Uncle Shao is familiar with the melody of "The Internationale", but he can't remember the lyrics, and his toothless mouth is trying to keep up with the rhythm of Lao Wu, but he can't keep up. Lao Wu played the melody over and over again, taught and sang over and over again, and a group of old men and women clumsily followed. I am a party member, and I sing with Lao Wu.
Rise up hungry slaves
Rise up the suffering people of the whole world
The blood is already boiling
Fight for the truth
The old world is in ruins
The slaves rose up
Don't say we have nothing
We want to be the masters of the world
This is the last struggle
Unite until tomorrow
Internachonaire
It must be achieved
This is the last struggle
Unite until tomorrow
Internachonaire
It must be achieved
There has never been a savior
Nor does it rely on the Immortal Emperor
To create human happiness
It's all on our own
We want to reclaim the fruits of our labor
Let the mind break through the cage
Burn that fire red
Strike while the iron is hot to succeed
I noticed that Hengkuan was also humming.
The wind does not move, the banner does not move, the heart does not move, the heaven and the earth move, the universe moves, and people move.
END