Zhongnan Mountain is right around you; the hermits in Zhongnan Mountain have also heard about it for a long time. However, the specific understanding of Zhongnan Mountain and the hermits in the mountain was through a book written by a foreign writer.
This book is "The Orchid in the Empty Valley". The author of this book, Bill Porter, is a famous contemporary American sinologist and translator. He has translated a large number of ancient Chinese Buddhist classics into English.
Since 1972, he has been living in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In 1989, he set foot on mainland China for the first time and walked into Zhongnan Mountain.
This book was first published in 2001 and only 4,000 copies were printed. The book in my hand is already in its ninth printing in 2011.
The "Preface" was written by the author himself in August 2006. I was deeply attracted by the first sentence of "Preface". "I've always been attracted to solitude."
There are several passages in the "Preface" that made me unable to put down the book and had to read it in one go.
The book introduces many places where the author went. There are temples and Taoist temples in the city, and more often there are small temples, Taoist temples and thatched cottages in the mountains.
He walked through the sky plank road, walked through the narrow and shaky wooden bars, and walked through the cliffs that were close to death, just like the path between life and death.
He has met abbots and abbots of large temples, and Taoist priests of famous Taoist temples, but he has seen more hermits who live in the mountains all year round. Some are in their eighties or nineties, and some have not been out of the mountains for forty or fifty years.
Whether they are living in a temple in a busy city, enduring the hustle and bustle of tourists and dealing with trivial chores, or perching on a secluded mountain peak that no one has ever reached, they all follow strict precepts. Because the precepts are your own requirements for yourself, that is, persist in and believe in your own practice.
The mainland in 1989 was completely different from what it is today. You can imagine how difficult the search was back then.
When I followed the author's footsteps into the city of Chang'an, the city where I was born and grew up, many of the places the author has visited have also been visited by me, but I have not. Places I haven’t stopped to pay attention to.
I walked with the author through Ci'en Temple, walked to Qujiang Pool, and watched the Qujiang Water Bowl by the Qujiang Pool, then walked through the Han Kiln, and passed the soil of Fengqiyuan. Po, came to Hu Hai's small tomb covered with thorns and vines.
How familiar these places are! However, it is not clear why Ci'en Temple was named "Ci'en" and why it was later called the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.
Han Kiln has now become a renovated and quite impressive tourist attraction.
The Tomb of Hu Hai is no longer a "small tomb covered with thorns" and has been developed into the "Tomb of Qin II Park". The quiet and clean park is an excellent place for nearby residents to exercise and relax.
In this way, I followed the author through many places. There are places that have been visited before, places that have been heard of before, and there are many places that have never been visited or heard of before.
Xingjiao Temple is located on the western edge of Shaolingyuan. Xuanzang Pagoda is its most important building. In 1939, Chiang Kai-shek built it in memory of his mother. During that decade, Zhou Enlai personally ordered the temple to be protected from damage. The three words "Xingjiao Temple" on the plaque in the main hall were inscribed by Kang Youwei.
The abbot of the temple was named Chang Ming. He was seventy-four years old at the time. If he were still alive today, he would be over a hundred years old.
Less than ten kilometers south of Xingjiao Temple is Jiawu Terrace. There was a monk named Guangshan who lived in a thatched cottage in the back mountain. He was ninety-eight years old and had been living there for more than forty years.
There is a black and white photo of him in the book. He was sitting upright on a stool, wearing a monk's robe with the lapel folded. He is holding a bamboo cane in his left hand and placing his right hand on his right knee. The white beard on his chin is more than two inches long, and his ears are particularly big. He was very thin and looked more like a Taoist priest than a monk.
In addition to Xingjiao Temple, the author also visited Caotang Temple, Xiangji Temple, Xingqing Temple, Yanhua Temple, Jingye Temple, Amitabha Temple, Reclining Buddha Temple, etc. There are many famous and unknown temples.
In addition to temples, there are also Taoist temples. In addition to going south, there is also going east. The author passed through the Baling Mausoleum, the Mausoleum of Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty, the Kengru Valley, and finally arrived at Lishan Mountain. The author has visited as many places as possible where hermits once lived.
There are many temples and Taoist temples in Lishan Mountain alone.
Laojun Hall is said to be the place where Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty and Concubine Yang prayed for Altair and Vega in the next life. A statue of Laozi enshrined in the hall was carved by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty from a huge white stone on Zhongnan Mountain. It has now been moved to the Provincial Museum in Xi'an.
The Laomu Hall is dedicated to Nuwa. The legend about her is well known to every household, so there is no need to say more.
Interestingly, Shiweng Temple was once considered the most beautiful place on Lishan Mountain. The author met a nun in the temple and was drinking tea with a female lay Buddhist.
Although their lives are very poor, the teapots they use are purple clay teapots from Yixing kilns. Their tea is also the famous Wuyi Mountain tea.
I also heard an allusion for the first time. The tea you drink before sitting in meditation is called "Bodhidharma's eyelids". It turns out that according to legend, Bodhidharma cut off his eyelids 1,500 years ago to prevent him from falling asleep during meditation. Where his eyelids fell, the first tea trees grew.
This allusion is really interesting, at least it is much more interesting than tea can kill the new coronavirus.
Of course, the author must go to Taibai Mountain, and a small episode also happened there. The author and his companions were arrested as spies and returned to the Xi'an Foreign Affairs Bureau.
After the author returned to Chang'an City after searching all the way, he went to the Eight Immortals Palace. What is very interesting is that it is a different feeling when listening to a foreigner tell the story of the Eight Immortals that we are all familiar with.
I once imagined that if I told Westerners the story of Noah’s Ark or the Bible, how would their foreign friends feel?
There are constant dialogues between the author and the monks in the book, which are full of Zen ideas. At that time, Taoist Master Yang of the Eight Immortals Palace was already seventy-two years old, had been a monk for nearly fifty years, and was already blind.
He said that Buddhists and Taoists are walking the same path, they are just dreaming different dreams. They are essentially the same, except that Taoism emphasizes life, while Buddhism emphasizes sex, but those who truly practice practice both sex and life.
On the last day in Xi'an, the author went to the cypress forest to buy stamps for his son, and accidentally noticed a temple - Wolong Temple.
Back then there was only a small handwritten sign on the roadside. The author followed this sign and entered an alley. Not far away, I saw the big rusty iron gate of Wolong Temple.
At that time, the front yard of the temple was deserted. A factory had just been demolished inside, and the temple building was in dilapidated condition. However, after passing through the inner courtyard and entering the main hall, there is a small stone Buddha carved at the end of the fifth century and a statue of Guanyin from the Tang Dynasty.
My fate with this temple is that the first project I participated in more than 20 years ago was directly opposite it, and the only thing between the two was That alley. However, I have never set foot in this temple.
When the author was about to leave Wolong Temple, he saw several monks. The monk asked him what he was doing, and the author replied that he was visiting a hermit. The monks laughed, and one of them said: "We are all hermits here."
The author also laughed and couldn't help but sigh: It is really "a small hermit hiding in the wild, "Hidden in the city".
Perhaps it was the author's visits that allowed him to come up with the insights he expressed in the "Preface": Searching and finding the joy of "aloneness" in life - not living in isolation. , but because of deeper awareness and kindness, and living more harmoniously with everyone.
After closing the book, I followed the author and did some searching. During this special period of the epidemic, let me hide at home and find the fun of "being alone".