China has a legend of opening valleys, "opening valleys", that is, not eating grains, but filling the stomach with medicinal food and other things, or fasting for a certain period of time, is a common way of health preservation used by the ancients.
When Nan Huaijin was in retreat in Daxue Mountain, in order to have a better understanding of the theory of Confucian Buddha, he practiced valley opening and insisted on it for 28 days.
Nan Huaijin said: Tell you the experience, hunger does not die of hunger, but you must understand qigong and fill the stomach and intestines with qi. The function of the stomach and intestines is to keep moving, rubbing and digesting what you eat. After the thing is digested, the stomach and intestine are empty, it also has to peristalsis, if the qi is not full, the stomach rubs and breaks and bleeds.
Later, a Buddhist student saw Nan Huaijin so miraculous, and also learned not to eat, and ended up in the hospital in 14 days, and finally cut off half of his stomach.
After Nan Huaijin learned about it, he sighed and said, this is not fun, there must be a method, you don't understand the method, just come hard like this, then there must be a problem.
In fact, Nan Huaijin had already broken off the habit of eating long before this kind of valley opening, and it turned out that Nan Huaijin's earliest cultivation was following the Buddhist practice of not eating at lunch, that is, gradually reducing the amount.
Start with three bowls of rice, then eat two, then eat another bowl, half a bowl, and finally only one bite.
This last bite broke the hardest, and then at the end, eat seven peanuts, seven grains are reduced to three, three grains are reduced to one, and finally no longer eaten.
This training process took several months, was honed by water milling, and did not start fasting.
By the time Nan Huaijin was in retreat on the snowy mountain, he had not eaten all day long, but his mouth was still light, according to the good man in the Water Margin, it was a bird that faded out of his mouth.
So what to do?
Drink tea with snow from the mountains, and at the last look, the stool has no color and is white. In the end, there is no nutrition in the stool, and at this point, it can be regarded as completely quitting the diet.
Nan Huaijin concluded that the saddest day was the third day, like death, but on the fourth day, the spirit was restored, and the eyes glowed like light bulbs.
The above content is scattered in Master Nan's works "The Wisdom of the Medicine Master's Sutra", "Meditation Videos", "Taoism, Tantra and Eastern Mysticism", "Yogi's Treatise on the Land and Hearsay", and "Answering Questions to Young and Middle-aged Zen Practitioners", which is completely the experience sharing of a practitioner.
As the last master of Chinese culture proficient in the three schools of Confucianism and Buddhism in modern China, Nan Huaijin lived in the lowest era in China, when everyone lost confidence in Chinese culture and abandoned it as if it were a stubborn, only people like Nan Huaijin searched for famous teachers everywhere, continued the culture, got the inheritance of Confucian Zen Taoism, and inherited the essence of culture, this is the Song Dynasty Great Confucian Zhang Hengqu said "to continue to study for the saints"!
Later, it took 68 years to spread and promote Chinese culture wholeheartedly, so that it spread Chinese culture to all parts of the world, retaining the essence of culture, and today's children's reading of the Bible first came from the promotion of Nan Huaijin.
Nanshi wrote 55 volumes in his lifetime, and according to the statistics of Fudan University Press alone, the circulation of genuine copies reached 30 million copies; if an average of three people read a book, then 90 million people in China and the world have read Nanshi's books, that is, the seeds of culture have been planted in the hearts of nearly 100 million people.
Nan Shi was born in 1918, died in 2012, stayed in the world for 94 years, lectured for 68 years, the night before his death was still lecturing for young students, this is the modern Zhuge Liang, really did his best, just after death, such people, in addition to respect, in fact, the best way to commemorate is to learn the essence of Nanshi and become the heir of traditional culture.
Last year, on the tenth anniversary of Nan Shi's death, Fudan University Press compiled the "Nan Huaijin Anthology" very carefully, which is a must-have collection on the shelves.
Nan Huaijin Collection (15 volumes, 30 titles)Nan Huaijin Anthology Literary Works CollectionValuable Box ¥1380 Purchase
According to the Buddhists, one's ability to be associated with good knowledge is the result of repeated generations of practice, and the masterpiece of the Southern Master can increase the luck of a family.
Of course, if you don't have much time to read and yearn for Nan Huaijin's wisdom, you may wish to read the condensed version of Nan Huaijin's book "Nan Huaijin on Chinese Wisdom" in a set of three volumes, which will also be rewarding.
Nan Huaijin Talks Chinese Wisdom Series ¥59 Purchase