One foot on three provinces, Inner Mongolia on the left, Shaanxi Province on the right, across a big river, Shanxi Province on the top. As soon as the rooster sings, the three provinces can be heard. It is in such a border place that the nine-petal weathered lotus flower is deserted, the fragrance of the flowers is not sweet, and it rejects laymen, but attracts the emperor. Many, many years ago, a powerful emperor visited the temple and gave the mountain a beautiful name. Even if it is a legend, he is an isolated example in history and culture. After the beacon tower climbed the hill, the wind carried the cold air of the river up the hillside. The river is blue, the swans are fluttering [piānxiān], the big stones build small temples, only to see a broken brick and residual stones, and the wet and hard air particles at the water's edge are coarse and touchable. 濯 [zhuó] brocade lotus flowers, the mountains are scorching, the lotus stamen is dying, the flower is supported by 葳蕤 [wēi ruí], the leaves are shielded and fragrant, and the lotus leaves are completely missing.
One morning many years ago, in the high lotus flowers on the border of Jin, Shaanxi and Mongolia, a line of small figures, in the thick hail [xiàn] fog, like trees on arsenic sandstone, were exposed, dented and raised, allowing the small temple and the plate to stand out.
A glacier that crosses the earth and hugs a winding Great Wall, the lotus flower is a representation of the landform. In the folded lotus stamens, the group climbed to the top of the hill almost with their hands and feet, and stopped on a dazzling hillside. On the rubble of the ruins, a fist-sized temple with a green tile ridge is the mansion of the Lord of the Earth. Thousands of ravines around, the jade belt makes the river, a big water, blocked by the mountains and rivers, bends out a few folds, like a green silk is blown by the wind, softly a few songs, elegantly falls to the ground, leaving a beautiful shape. Gifted with charm, people call this place the land of meanders.
It seems that too much time has been buried, and the sun has also asked for it, and the ridgeline is the sky, a round of wide, and the mountains and rivers are bright. I kept looking at them, and the old man who received the sacrifice had bright eyes, and I couldn't tell that he was a seventy-two year old. One evening later, he actually wrenched my wrist with me, and the palm of his hand was wide and warm, and his fingers that had accumulated strength were like five steel hooks, clamping me tightly, and the momentum prevailed. The moment he knocked me down, I saw his toothless smile, kind and broad, innocent and cunning, this is an old man with a big chest, a peak heart, and a plain under his feet.
"The sacrificial shrine is to worship the lord of the land. All things come from the soil, and the Jade Emperor also gives three points!" he caressed a huge stone lion in front of the old temple with one hand, and looked at the Yellow River in the distance. Unhurriedly, he said to me: "On the fourth day of the first lunar month, in the past, ten temples of incense had to be burned before it could be counted as a sacrifice. When I go home, I have to burn a stick of incense!"
His kindness and generosity are commensurate with his slowness.
"The Lord of the Land is a little god, he didn't come here before, he built a mound of soil on the spot, planted a seedling tree, and then he could be sacrificed. "When the old man spoke, I stood in the wind. Vast expanses of white clouds crossed the ridge above my head, far away from the heavens and the earth. The old man continued: "Twenty or thirty households are a village. In every village, there is a land temple, which is about the same size and has not changed for many years. Each temple is similar, to say that the difference is the size of the incense!" He asked me if I wanted to go in and see, I bowed my waist, I could barely see the inside, I would definitely not be able to enter, and all the land temples I saw, the same, simple is the characteristic.
"God is so old, we don't know when his birthday is. The land lord is so big, when he is a sesame official, no one knows his birthday, but people have to know gratitude, day by day, hundreds of generations, thousands of years, let you step on it, let you step on it, bleeding and sweating, for you to eat and drink, without a complaint, respect him is a matter of course!" "Justified" came out of the old man's mouth, there was an unquestionable authority.
"The land lord is so lively, and the social drama is sung for him. Now Sanchun Huang can't sing a play, so he will beat a gong and drum. He laughed to himself, and there was one thing that the old man had not said, and I already understood the meaning of what he had buried under his tongue. Later, in the autumn, I watched Xie Xi's social drama here. There are so many people who come from nowhere, everyone has a stick of incense, cigarette smoke, and they can't see the face of another person within a few meters. Bizarre things happened, a child picked up the land lord from the god case, this stoneware fired land god, smiling, very cute. The child throws his left hand and kicks his right foot, and he is head-on. His broad lips were stained with mud, but he still smiled generously. Soon, the child's dirty hands made him filthy, and he was still smiling. The people next to him were not surprised, they just teased the child and walked away. The child's mother did not panic, took it from the child's hand, saw that the land was dirty, and wiped it casually. But it was a pair of hands that had just eaten a roasted yam, but they painted a bag on his face, so he had to let him get dirty and offer it to the shrine again. Then he knelt down, gave incense to the land lord, burned the paper, turned around and picked up the child, and went to watch the play. Later, I accompanied a friend who studied folk beliefs to see this temple, she was not surprised to hear what happened to the land lord, said that when she was a child, there was such a statue at home, and when the kiln was burned out, it was used as a toy, and she also dropped the land lord in the urine mud!
"Among all the gods, the land lord is the most open-minded and generous, and he blends well with the common people. He may still be a mud fetus at night, but when he gets up in the morning, he becomes a god. When a family's sheep could not be found, the owner ran to him, knelt down before him, and begged for help. When the child runs away, people will complain about him inexplicably, why can't he even control a child. Afterwards, he may not burn incense and kowtow to him. The next time something unexpected, he will still be a god and a punching bag!"
On that day, it suddenly snowed heavily on the mountain. She looked up at the small temple, her long hair flying and snowflakes filled. Standing on the top of the beacon in the Ming Dynasty, she said: "I like here, I like the Great Wall behind me, the Yellow River in front of me, I like the vastness of the mountains and rivers, and I like the silence." This land temple has the view of the world's Qionglou Yuyu, the earth is abundant, there is great feng shui! Leaning on the back for 3,000 years, stepping on 20,000 miles! Beautiful things never disappoint. Among these small temples that are as many as cow's hair, there is such a one, which is in line with the magnanimity and all-encompassing temperament of the Lord of the Land!" she said very seriously, and her face was solemn. "A small temple that drives a landscape. At the foot of the Great Wall, on the bank of the Yellow River, lotus flowers bloom, swans are auspicious, the long river is far away, among the temples, it comes out of the crowd. The temple is small and the mountains and rivers are small, and this is the mansion of the land of the fang!"
I turned around, and the couplet in front of the door was unclear, and I could barely see it clearly:
The wilderness is swept away by no one
The bald house is less light and the moon is the lamp
"The temple is small and the gods are boundless, the mountains are high and the saints are clear, you can not be in awe, but you must not be grateful!
I went to find Uncle Lian, he was wearing a pair of reading glasses to consider "Saying Wen Jie Zi", and he pointed out to me: "She, the landlord also." Specifically refers to the Lord of the Land!"
On that day, when the morning sun was slightly dewed, there was still night frost on the tips of the grass, and when a small team walked by, they fell off, and the crystalline ice dew shone little by little. After the sacrifice came down from the mountain, it was already dawn. The sky is high, the river is bright, and the peaks are surrounded by auspicious clouds. Uncle Lian said, I'll sing you a song "The Land Lord has a Good Temper":
The lord of the land, with long arms
The upper tube is yin and the lower tube is yang
One hand pressed the three evil spirits
一手摁着三恶狼
Lord of the land, in charge of all directions
Be kind and giving, and have a good temper
It's good or bad, you can see it clearly
It doesn't matter if you are incense or not
That was years ago. I wrote the New Year's Record, a foot meandering, from the city to find here, along the way there are still many small temples, most of the incense dim. I brought incense and candles, and when I offered them, I realized that I didn't bring matches or lighters, so I didn't burn the incense. Is this the fate of the land lord, or is it my negligence?
Maybe today, the fourth day of the first lunar month, the day of the festival, there is no need for crowds, as long as there are a few people and a few incense. I believe that the temple must be full of incense, infinite mountains and rivers, beautiful as ever.
Source: Warm News WeChat public account