Introduction to Master Hongyi
Li Shutong (1880- 1942), also known as Li Xishuang and Ang Lee, was originally named with broad scientific name and double characters.
Li Shutong is a famous musician, art educator, calligrapher and drama activist, and one of the pioneers of China drama. After he returned from studying in Japan, he worked as a teacher and editor. Later, he became a monk, and his legal name was Hongyi, and his legal name was Yixian. Later, he was honored as Master Hongyi.
19 13 was employed as a music and painting teacher in Zhejiang two-level normal school (later changed to Zhejiang No.1 Normal School). 19 15, worked as a music and painting teacher at Nanjing Normal University and wrote the first school song in the history of Nanjing University.
The Story of Master Hongyi
"Outside the pavilion, by the ancient road, the grass is green; The evening breeze blows the flute, and the sunset is beyond the mountain. The horizon, the horizon, intimate friends are half scattered; A cloudy glass of wine will make me happy, and I will bid farewell to Meng Han tonight. " Even those who don't know who Li Shutong is, most of them have heard his song "Farewell" sung from 19 15.
As the most legendary figure in China in the 20th century, Li Shutong is the pioneer of modern music, drama and art in China. In the second half of his life, he was brave, diligent and compassionate, and became the eleventh founder of Nanshan Legalist School, a narrow-minded and hardworking monk, known as the "normal school".
The statue of Master Hongyi
From Li Shutong in the world to Master Hongyi in Buddhism, he bid farewell to his wife and children in the prime of his life, breaking through the dust, and achieved a leap between the world and the pure land, affection and great love. This dramatic turn, how to prevent the world from continuing from that year to the present?
Becoming a monk may be Li Shutong's fate. No matter how many years he has been preparing, this moment will suddenly come to his family. At that time, he needed to give an account to his family.
So he wrote a farewell letter to his Japanese wife Seiko. It was this letter that not only brought an accident to his wife and children, but also left us with multiple doubts.
In his later years, Master Hongyi told his disciple Master Miaolian, "When you helped me, you saw tears in my eyes. This is not to remember the world, nor to miss my loved ones, but to recall the regrets of my life. "
The world has something to do with "traveling to Xiaojinchi"
Born in the Li family of Tongda, Tianjin, the third child, has a young name, scientific name, which is similar to a word. His father was Li Hongzhang's scholar in the same year, and he was an official in charge of the official department. After becoming an official, he managed the salt industry, started a bank and became a rich man in Kinmen.
Romantic teenagers once fell in love with the famous Guinness actress Yang. In order to restrain his restless heart, his mother arranged a marriage for him under the auspices of his second brother Wen. The other party is Miss Yu, the daughter of Tianjinwei tea merchant. The head of the Yu family is two years older than him, and the two families are matched. In the old society, they were a good match.
At that time, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others were presiding over the reform. Li Shutong, who has always cared about state affairs, looked forward to the future and hated the old system, actively advocated new theories and carved the seal of "Nanhai Kangliang as my teacher" to show his support. Unexpectedly, the coup of 1898 ended in failure, and it was rumored that Kang and Liang were accomplices. In order to avoid disaster, he moved to Shanghai with his mother and wife, and interacted with celebrities in Shanghai as a rich boy.
When I was young, I had an affair with famous prostitutes Li Pingxiang and Xie in Shanghai for several years, accompanied by a poem, and my wife never interfered.
Li Shutong's father died when he was five years old, and his mother was more than 40 years younger than his father. At that time, she was just a woman in her twenties. It is not easy to raise Li Shutong in a discriminated family. Li Shutong is so filial. After his mother died, Li Shutong returned to Tianjin with his wife and two young sons, and held a funeral for his mother in accordance with the practice of memorial service in eastern and western countries.
The death of my biological mother was a great stimulus. I thought my "happy period" was over, so I entrusted Yu's family and two sons to my second brother's old house in Tianjin and went to Japan to study.
1899, Li Shutong (left) is 20 years old.
Taken in Shanghai apartment, south of the city thatched cottage.
When Li Shutong first arrived in Japan, he was deeply envious of the westernization achievements after the Meiji Restoration, and made a comprehensive study and attack on western art. He studied western painting from painters such as Keisuke Kuroda at Ueno Art School, and also studied music and composition at the Music School, and also studied drama in his spare time. He and Zeng Xiaogu founded "Spring Willow Society" and advocated drama, which was the earliest group to study drama in China. The troupe has successively performed the Legacy of La Traviata and the Record of the Black Slave. , with Li Shutong as the leading role, became famous for a while.
While studying fine arts in Japan, as the first generation of art students from China, Li Shutong accepted the western realistic education system. There are nude sketches in the curriculum of Ueno Art School. It is not difficult for Li Shutong to sketch male models at school, but the problem of female models will never be solved. Until one day, Li Shutong was practicing painting in his apartment, and he happened to notice that the landlord's daughter Cheng Zi sent him food.
Giving Li Shutong food and rice every day is Cheng Zi's initial concern. Soon, Li Shutong bluntly invited her to be his model, and Cheng Zi became his full-time female model. Because of the same hobby and sincere treatment for each other, the two began to cross the boundaries between painters and models. Li Shutong felt the taste of love for the first time. Soon, Li Shutong and Cheng Zi held a simple wedding, and she became Li Shutong's second wife. In the meantime, Li Shutong wrote in the poem "Swimming to Xiaojinchi": "The small bridge is silent, and I catch a glimpse of the top of the forest in the morning." I can see that his heart is quiet and happy at this time.
Li Shutong and his Japanese wife Seiko returned to China in 19 1 1. At the beginning of returning home, Li Shutong did not take Cheng Zi back to her hometown in Tianjin where Shi Yu was located, but arranged for her to live in Shanghai. He himself served as the director of Tianjin Beiyang Higher Technical School. Nearly a year later, he came to Shanghai to live with Cheng Zisheng. Later, she worked as a music teacher in Shanghai Chengdong Girls' School, as a literary editor in the Pacific newspaper, and was also responsible for supplements and advertisements. 19 12 10 in June, the Pacific newspaper was closed, and Li Shutong was forced to leave Shanghai to apply for the post of music and painter in Zhejiang two-level normal schools.
Every holiday here, Li Shutong will go back to Shanghai from Hangzhou to meet Cheng Zi, and his teacher's salary is usually divided into four parts every month: one for his wife in Shanghai, one for his wife and children in Tianjin, one for Japanese Liu Zhiping (a disciple of Li Shutong, who was subsidized by Li Shutong during his study abroad), and the last one for himself.
Li Shutong bought tickets for the Beijing opera Huang Tianba in Shanghai.
Why break up with your passionate lover?
19 16 One day, Li Shutong, who was teaching music pictures in Zhejiang First Normal School, chatted with his colleague Xia Mianzun.
Xia Mianzun said that he had read about fasting in a Japanese magazine, saying that fasting can refresh the mind and produce great spiritual strength. Sakyamuni, Jesus and Muhammad all experienced fasting. When the speaker is careless and the listener is interested, Li Shutong finds a magazine to read.
Just after the Spring Festival in the following year, Li Shutong went to Tiger Run Dinghui Temple at the foot of Daci Mountain in Hangzhou for a fasting experience, which lasted 2 1 day. After returning to school, he began to be a vegetarian.
During this period, he came into contact with many Buddhist scriptures, from which he felt that fame and fortune in the world were illusory. 1917 65438+18 October, Li Shutong said in a letter to student Liu Zhiping, "I plan to become a Buddhist disciple in a few years, or I don't know for a year or two ... Now I have finished everything one by one." 1 1 year, Li Shutong went to Tiger Run Dinghui Temple to listen to the story of Falun Zen Master. After he came back, he wrote a book couplet and signed a "baby laity". At this time, he changed his name to "Li Ying", which means a new life like a baby. Soon, he gave his friends all the books, calligraphy and painting, folding fans, stones and so on that he had treasured for many years, leaving no clothes. Obviously, he is preparing for parting.
1916 65438+February 25th-1917 65438+10/0/0.
Li Shutong has been fasting in Hangzhou Tiger Run for 18 days.
19 18 In the spring, Li Shutong went to Dinghui Temple in Yuhu. In January, it happened that his good friend and Confucian master Ma Yifu took his friend Peng Xunzhi to Tiger Run Dinghui Temple to become a monk. Li Shutong witnessed the whole process of Peng Xun's tonsure and was deeply shocked. He wants to learn from Master Hongxiang who shaved Peng Xun. Master Hongxiang thought he was inexperienced, so he invited his master to meet Master Wu, and took him as a disciple at home, named him.
Colleague Jiang Dan once asked Li Shutong, "Do you want to become a monk?" Li Shutong replied, "Yes." Jiang Danshu asked again, "Why?" Li Shutong replied: "Nothing." Jiang Danshu asked three questions: "You are a passionate person, but you are reluctant to lose your own flesh and blood?" Li Shutong replied: "What will happen if you die of the tiger epidemic?" The last sentence means that if you die of a sudden illness, even if you can't part with your wife and children, what can you do?
191August19. On the 13th day of the seventh lunar month, Li Shutong became a monk in Dinghui Temple in Hupao. In September, he went to Lingyin Temple to accept the appointment of a monk. From June+10, 5438, I stayed at Jingyan Temple in Jiaxing. At the end of the year, at the invitation of Ma Yifu, I went to Chao Hai Temple in Hangzhou for seven times (referring to the practice of verification during the seven-day period), and I have no other thoughts since then.
At this point, there is no Li Shutong in the world, only master Hongyi.
Master Hongyi wrote a couplet for Wang Burao.
Please call me Hongyi after you settle down.
On the day Li Shutong left Zhejiang No.1 Division, the news of his return to Buddhism spread all over Hangzhou. In a few days, it spread all over Shanghai. It didn't take long for it to spread all over the country, and Japan and Southeast Asia, where he had studied abroad, became the news of China's cultural and educational circles since the Republic of China. But Li Shutong himself didn't tell his family about becoming a monk in advance. Not to mention the first wife I haven't seen in Tianjin for several years, even the Japanese wife Cheng Zi, who lives in Shanghai and meets from time to time, knows nothing in advance.
A few weeks after the haircut, Cheng Zi, who got the news, rushed from Shanghai to Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou with his youngest son, holding the last glimmer of hope, trying to persuade her husband not to abandon her and become a monk. This year is the first 1 1 year after they met. However, Li Shutong made up his mind not to even let his wife and children into the temple. Before Cheng Zi had no choice but to leave, facing the closed temple gate, he asked in a sad voice, "Compassion is the world, why do you only hurt me?"
Huang Yanpei once published an article entitled "Let me also talk about Mr. Li Shutong". It wrote: "Uncle Tong first became a monk in Hangzhou West Lake. A few years later, Uncle Tong's wife went to Shanghai and asked Mrs. Zhan Lianyi from Chengdong Girls' School and my wife at that time to accompany her to Hangzhou to find Uncle Tong. After visiting several temples, she found it and invited Uncle Tong to have a meal at the lakeside vegetarian restaurant in front of Yue Temple. When three people asked questions, Tong Shu answered them. Finally, Tong Shu never said a word automatically and never looked up and opened his eyes to three people. After dinner, Uncle Tong left for the temple, hired a boat, and three people were sent aboard. Uncle Tong got on the boat with the same person. The ship set sail and Uncle Tong never looked back. However, when I saw a mud sloshing into the middle of the lake, until people and boats buried the Yun Shenchu of the lake together, I saw nothing. Uncle and his wife finally ignored it and went home crying. "
However, behind Li Shutong's ruthless choice, he wrote a farewell letter to Cheng Zi before he became a monk, which made people see his affectionate side beyond ruthlessness.
Eighteen arhats painted by Master Hongyi
This farewell book was written two weeks before he officially became a monk. In the letter, he wrote bluntly: "about my decision to become a monk ... I talked to you last time, so you must know that it is only a matter of time before I become a monk ... can you understand my decision?" If you agree with me, please write and tell me that your decision is very important to me ... "
Visible about becoming a monk, Li Shutong is actually guilty of his family, especially his Japanese wife, Cheng Zi, who went to China with him and gave birth to a son for him. But all he can do is carefully save his salary for the first three months of becoming a monk and divide it into three parts. One of them, together with a lock of beard he cut, is asked to be given by his old friend Yang and his friends to send his mother and son back to Japan.
When he left the world of mortals, he wrote a farewell letter to Cheng Zi, comforting her and saying, "Please swallow this bitter wine and live with it. I don't think there is a vulgar and cowardly soul living inside you. May Flickr's quilt help you through this difficult time. " And said: "I made such a decision, not ungrateful. For the more eternal and difficult course of Buddhism and Taoism, I must put everything down. "
In the movie "A Moon" which tells the story of master Hongyi, there is such a scene:
Early in the morning, in the foggy West Lake, two ships are facing each other. Cheng Zi: "Uncle Tong-"Li Shutong: "Please call me Hongyi." Cheng Zi: "Master Hongyi, please tell me what love is?" Li Shutong: "Love is sympathy."
Li Shutong finally broke off the relationship between husband and wife, and officially turned into Master Hony. Among them, the seemingly heartless attitude towards Cheng Zi and her mother may be more affectionate to all beings in the world.
Li Shutong Songs Edited by Feng Zikai.
There are regrets in life.
A generation of gifted scholars gave up secular life and suddenly fled into an empty net, which made people feel deeply sorry and puzzled at that time and now. At the same time of discussion, the world made various versions of speculation and analysis on his becoming a monk: his weakness for reality, his disdain for trivial matters of the world of mortals, his haggard for illness and his yearning for Buddhist culture finally made him abandon the life track of ordinary people and pursue a higher level of life and soul life. However, the mystery of the artist becoming a monk has never been solved.
Feng Zikai, a student in Li Shutong, expressed his understanding of becoming a monk. He said, I think people's life can be divided into three layers: first, material life, second, spiritual life, and third, soul life. Soul life is religion. Religious people are very serious. For them, neither material desire nor spiritual desire can satisfy them. They must explore the truth of life and investigate the source of soul and the root of the universe. According to Feng Zikai's understanding, Li Shutong is such a person.
After becoming a monk, Li Shutong became a master of Hongyi, and resolutely cut off all kinds of arts he had been fascinated with, such as drama, oil painting and western music. But he never stopped learning calligraphy and became old and knowledgeable.
After more than 20 years of sincere and solemn self-discipline, Master Hongyi revived the tradition of legalism that had been cut off for hundreds of years. Buddhism called Hongyi "the eleventh ancestor of reviving Nanshan legalism".
Lin Yutang once said: "He once belonged to our time, but he finally abandoned it and jumped out of the world of mortals." Zhang Ailing said: "Don't think that I am a proud person, I have never been-at least, outside the wall of Master Hongyi Temple, I am so humble." Zhao Puchu even commented that he was "an endless treasure in the eyes of the world, and a full moon shines on the heavenly heart".
Master Hongyi was seriously ill in his later years. He refused to seek medical treatment and concentrated on studying Buddhism. He told his disciple, Master Miaolian, "You saw tears in my eyes when you were helping me with my study. This is not to remember the world, nor to miss my loved ones, but to recall the regrets of my life. "
1942 10 June10 In the afternoon, Master Hongyi took a pen and paper, wrote down the word "the intersection of sadness and joy" and gave it to Miaolian. 13 In the evening, Master Hongyi lay on his side in the bed of the humble room in Wenling Sanatorium, Quanzhou, Fujian Province, with his right hand propped up, his left arm at his sides, and his legs slightly straight together, just like Sakyamuni's sleeping position when he was in nirvana.
"Time is short, a corner of the sea, close friends. I want to drink a bottle of turbid wine and say goodbye to Meng Han tonight. " This poem "Farewell" written by him in the secular world, if we re-understand it now, can it be closer to the essence? Just like the author's sentimental work of bidding farewell to his intimate friends when his fate is fragile, it is also his farewell speech for himself when he is away from the temporarily closed stage of life.
Think of him as going backstage to change clothes and make up, and he will come as soon as he comes.
Master Hongyi's last suicide note "Sorrow and Joy"