Everyone has their own faith in their hearts, some believe in religion and hope to gain the power of healing; some worship great people and hope to live a legend.
Faith is the driving force for everyone to move forward, but some people's beliefs are particularly different. Nan Huaijin has a unique belief, at the World Buddhist Forum, he did not say that he believed in Buddhism, but said that he believed in sleeping.
At first glance, some people will feel that Nan Huaijin is not doing the right thing, after all, sleeping is only a normal physiological need, how to rise to the level of faith. It needs to be carefully tasted to come up with the true meaning.
Nan Huaijin was born in 1918 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang. At that time, it was the Republic of China period, and Nan Huaijin, who had some spare money in the family, got the opportunity to study from an early age.
Nan Huaijin's heart was full of thirst for knowledge, and he read a lot of books and had his own research on various genres, especially in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
Due to the chaos of the war, Nan Huaijin's heart sprouted a desire to seek the Buddha, and began to study the Dharma. After the outbreak of war, the academy was closed, but Nan Huaijin did not give up the possibility of seeking knowledge.
In 1937, Nan Huaijin was admitted to the tenth period of the political research class of the Central Military Academy, focusing on the study of international political forms, and after graduation, he entered the officer education team of the Central Military Academy. Because of his outstanding performance, Nan Huaijin was transferred to the general manager of the Liangshan Reclamation Company and the commander-in-chief of the local self-defense regiment, and later returned to the army as a political instructor at the military academy.
Despite her outstanding performance in political education, Nan Huaijin always had a heart of seeking Buddha in her heart. After five years of military life, Nan Huaijin resigned as an instructor at the Central Military Academy and abandoned the Lingyan Temple in Yinguan County.
At Lingyan Temple, Nan Huaijin began a true life of seeking the Tao, practicing like an ordinary monk. After three years of practice, Nan Huaijin lectured at Yunnan University and Sichuan University.
This lecture lasted only two years, when it was 1945, the war was feverish, Nan Huaijin felt numb in the hearts of the world, and realized that it was not the time to lecture, so he returned to his hometown of Yueqing after the incident and practiced in Qing near the Tianchi Temple in Lushan, Jiangxi.
After the end of the war, Nan Huaijin re-emerged from the mountains and first went to Taiwan to teach Buddhism at the Chinese Culture University, Fu Jen University, and National Chengchi University; and then together with his fellow villagers, he established the "Yi Li Xing" company to do shipping business.
With financial support, Nan Huaijin no longer had to run for her livelihood and devoted herself to Buddhism. In 1955, he published three Buddhist writings, the Zen Sea Worm Survey, the Lengyan Dayi Present Interpretation, and the Lengya Dayi Present Interpretation.
In 1963, he became a professor at Taipei Chinese Culture University and the dean of the School of Rites, and opened the I Ching at Fu Jen University in Taipei.
This teaching experience made Nan Huaijin realize that cultures have their own strengths and need to be inclusive and absorb essence. After returning to China in 1969, Nan Huaijin successively founded the "East-West Essence Association", "Lao gu cultural undertaking company", "Ten Square Zen Forest" and "Ten Square Jungle Academy" and other institutions.
After settling in Hong Kong in 1988, Nan Huaijin established the "Nan's Medical Science and Technology Foundation" and "Agricultural Science and Technology Foundation" in Wenzhou to build a Zen hall for Xiamen Nanputuo Temple.
In 2006, Nan Huaijin moved to Suzhou and established the "Taihu University Hall" and the Guanghua Scholarship Foundation. Such a great figure who devoted his life to Buddhism attracted the attention of the World Buddhist Forum.
When the first forum was held, the responsible Director Ye personally went to Taihu Lake to invite Nan Huaijin. Under the fame, the world expected him to speak at the Buddhist forum, but Nan Huaijin refused the invitation, jokingly replying that he only believed in sleeping.
For a while, everyone was in an uproar, and they couldn't understand what the 88-year-old man had in mind.
Although "letter sleep" is a joke, under the joke, it is the essence of Nan Huaijin's lifelong pursuit of Buddha. Buddhism emphasizes the principle of originating from the heart, and sleep confirms this truth, which hides a philosophy that can make our lives more transparent.
To understand this philosophy, we must start from what Nan Huaijin said. During his speech in Taiwan, Nan Huaijin once said the following:
"If man wants to go with the flow, he should follow the sun, that is, when the sky wakes up, I wake up, and the sky sleeps and I sleep." People are as small as dust in front of the sun, and it is a foolish choice to fight the sun, and sooner or later they will be destroyed by the huge gravitational pull of the sun. This is an objective truth. "
Nan Huaijin's implication is that people should follow the laws of nature, work and study during the day, and sleep and rest at night.
Now the concept of "nightlife" is widely popular, overtime work, staying up late to study has become the norm in some people's lives, and some work-intensive occupations have even become commonplace.
Such behaviors are extremely harmful to the body and cause the body to accumulate a lot of fatigue. When people are young, people have strong resilience, and if they are still physically strong and do not take the long-term fatigue of the body seriously, they will leave a curse in old age.
Buddhism emphasizes the cycle of cause and effect, and when applied here, the pain of old age is the result of the unbridled sowing of youth. For Nan Huaijin, sleeping is not just a physiological activity, he emphasizes the importance of dreams.
Nan Huaijin once said that "the old god condenses, and wants to dream of self-destruction." This sentence can be understood in conjunction with Taoist thought. Concentration is concentration, the elimination of greed and selfish thoughts.
Those who have attained the state of "concentration" live a pure and transparent life, and without miscellaneous desires, they naturally do not dream. Such a description seems simple, but it is as difficult to practice as ascending to the heavens, and there are only a few who can really achieve "concentration".
In this era of increasingly fast pace of life, the Internet has made there no barrier between information, but it has also invisibly amplified competition and suppressed human nature.
In the face of the pressure of further education and employment, more and more people feel anxious and lonely, and it is difficult to stabilize their state of mind. Nan Huaijin put into sleep with such a "fixed" attitude and walked into sleep with ease and joy, which is naturally also a kind of "great light".
Inheriting the Dharma with sleep embodies Nan Huaijin's wisdom and good roots, so that sleep also has the "six degrees", not so much sleeping with the eyes, but sleeping with the "heart".
In our lives, sleep occupies one-third of the time, and good sleep quality can effectively improve our quality of life. Nan Huaijin's connection between sleep and The Dharma is a true application of Buddhism to things that are beneficial to physical and mental life.
This is also another manifestation of Nan Huaijin saying that she does not believe in Buddhism and believes in sleep. Buddhism is very different from the manifestation of studying Buddhism.
Scholars regard Buddhism as a scholarly study, but learning Buddhism must be based on empirical evidence like Nan Huaijin, so that they can change their own customs and make themselves enlightened.
Text/Zhao Helan