Chapter 28 1. The Son of Heaven

The word "universe", in English, is cosmos, or universe, and other Western languages ​​are roughly similar.Cosmos and universe in modern English are basically synonymous. The difference between the two words is that the former comes from the Greek, which means "order", as opposed to "chaos", and the latter comes from the Latin universe, from uni (same as One) and versus (towards, the past participle of the verb vertere), which means the whole moving in the same direction, and its extended meaning is the sum of all material phenomena. In our Chinese philosophy, the so-called "yu" refers to the four directions of heaven and earth, which generally refers to space, and the so-called "Zhou" refers to the past and present, and generally refers to time.The combination of the two words is the totality of space and time, which is simple and clear.The wisdom of Chinese man-made words is more than one or two points higher than that of Westerners.

Even better, according to this theory, a person can also be a universe.Man is the totality of space and time in the narrow sense. There is indeed someone who claims to be the universe, and that person is Hou Jing.Hou Jing's life was quite inconceivable, so inconceivable that it must be described in the universe.What made Hou Jing incredible was another incredible person—Emperor Liang Wu of the Southern Dynasty. "Unbelievable" comes from "Vimalakirti Sutra Unthinkable Product", which is a term in Buddhism, and Emperor Wu of Liang was just a devout Buddhist, even to put it bluntly, a somewhat extreme Buddhist.

Regarding Emperor Liang Wu's devotion to Buddhism, there are very detailed records in the official history. "Liang Shu" said that he "believed in the correct Dharma, especially in the interpretation of scriptures, and wrote the scriptures and meanings of "Nirvana", "Dapin", "Jingming" and "Sanhui". , reprinted hundreds of volumes. After listening and reading, he gave lectures in Chongyun Temple and Tongtai Temple. Famous monks and masters, four audiences, often more than ten thousand people." There are hundreds of volumes of Buddhist scriptures compiled by him, and the territory Nearly 3,000 Buddhist temples have been built and supported. "Temple" was originally the name of an ancient administrative institution, such as Guanglu Temple and Dali Temple. One of the first titles of eunuchs was eunuch.The Buddhist temple culture of the Northern and Southern Dynasties took root in the minds of the world, so that many people today think of the monks in Buddhist temples instead of Bao Zheng in Dali Temple when they mention "temple".Du Mu's "four hundred and eighty temples in the Southern Dynasties", the figures can only be conservative, not exaggerated.The temples and pagodas (that is, pagodas) of the Southern Dynasties, and the grottoes and Buddha statues of the Northern Dynasties complement each other, and they are a pair of wonderful works of Chinese Buddhist cultural relics.

In order to evolve Buddhism into a belief that educates all people, Emperor Wu of Liang "set an example" and received the Bodhisattva precepts in the Hualin Garden in the palace in the eighteenth year of Tianjian (519 A.D.), and his Dharma name was crowned.In the secular world, he is the emperor of the country. In the world of Buddha, he is a practicing Bodhisattva. The title of "Emperor Bodhisattva" comes from this.Receiving the precepts was not enough, he built Tongtai Temple next door to the palace (the word "Tongtai" is taken from the irony of his reign name "Datong"), and went to the temple to preach scriptures and preach Buddhist ideas to all people, that is, The so-called "sacrificing one's life as a temple slave".

The first "sacrifice" took place in the eighth year of the Ordinary (AD 527). Years) entered Tongtai Temple three times to "sacrifice his life", and each time was longer than the first time. By the fourth time, it lasted forty-seven days.During these forty-seven days, Emperor Wu of Liang's identity was a "Bodhisattva", and Liang Guo was in fact without a king.He only wears legal clothes in the temple, and everything else is discarded; The Dharma conference that allows anyone to participate freely), lectured on the "Nirvana Sutra" and "Three Wisdom Sutras", and the audience reached tens of thousands.

The emperor "sacrificed himself" as a "temple slave", and the country could not live without a king for a day. The ministers were so anxious that they had to collect enough money to "redeem" him, which cost a total of three trillion yuan (some say four trillion). Therefore, Emperor Wu of Liang was an out-and-out "Buddhist emperor".Critics often like to emphasize that he is a Buddhist, and regardless of ideology, his contribution to Buddhist theory and his influence on Buddhist culture are quite far-reaching. His most famous set of theories in Buddhism is "the theory of the same origin of the three religions": Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism have the same origin.

The opposition and disputes between Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism have a long history.Before Buddhism was introduced to the Central Plains in the Han Dynasty, Confucianism and Taoism had disputes for hundreds of years. After Buddhism was introduced from the Western Regions, conflicts between religions were inevitable, and reached a peak in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.For example, regarding the issue of etiquette in the Confucian-Buddhist debate, whether monks should follow the etiquette of kneeling and worshiping scholar-bureaucrats when they meet the emperor, there have been large-scale debates from the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Liu Song Dynasty.

Another example is the dispute between Taoism and Buddhism. Wang Fu, a Taoist priest in the Western Jin Dynasty, wrote a "Lao Tzu Hua Hu Jing", saying that Buddhism came into being only after Lao Tzu left the customs and was reborn in the West.Naturally, this statement was constantly attacked by Buddhist believers. In the last years of the Liu and Song Dynasties, another Taoist Gu Huan wrote "Yi Xia Lun", trying to slander the Buddha, and the dispute between the two escalated.Buddhists say that the Buddha sent three disciples to China, one is Confucius, one is Yan Yuan, and the other is Lao Tzu.Everyone is obsessed with each other, and the quarrel can't reach a result.

Emperor Wu of Liang promulgated the Edict of She Dao, advocating Buddhism to the highest position, announcing Buddhism as the state religion, and making a ruling on this issue.However, he did not beat Confucianism and Taoism to death at the same time, because he himself was not low in Confucianism and Taoism, and he left many works explaining the thoughts of Confucius and Laozi.He believes that Confucianism and Taoism also have many advantages. The three religions should not confront each other, but should be integrated, and serve as a reference and complement to each other.He often referred to Sakyamuni, Confucius and Laozi as the "Three Sages". He also attached importance to the role of Confucianism and Taoism, vigorously opened Confucian classics, respected Tao Hongjing, a famous Taoist priest, and so on.These measures are quite in line with his status as the supreme ruler.

On the basis of the theory of the same origin of the three religions, Emperor Wu of Liang developed many Buddhist precepts that are easy to accept. The most influential one today is the first that monks must eat vegetarianism. The trend of vegetarianism in China has a relatively long history.The Taoist way of keeping in good health includes the diet theory of "five grains for nourishment and five fruits for help".Literati like to practice vegetarian fasting, which is more popular than modern girls' slimming behavior. It is a fashion.If you interfere with other people's vegetarian behavior, you may be in danger of being imprisoned, or you may lose your head. What's more exaggerated is that if you accidentally fart while eating vegetarian, and someone hears it, it is called "sitting fast." If you don't, you will be beheaded. (From this point of view, the ancients played fashion, which was much more exciting than the "extreme challenge" that modern people like to play, and they might throw their lives into it.)

Relatively speaking, Buddhism is more humane. It has the saying of eating "three clean meats", that is: one means killing without seeing;As long as these three conditions are met, believers can eat meat.This is still the case in many places today. Not far away, I have a friend in Thailand who told me that monks in Thailand eat meat. The original meaning of "肉" is not meat. "肉" is connected with "Xian" (the two words in Cantonese have the same pronunciation), and it refers to vegetables with a strong smell, such as onions, garlic, leeks, etc. (Many people today, especially It’s a girl, I don’t like to eat these, and it’s said that they have great potential for cultivation). The word "肉" follows grass but not meat, which is a clear proof. Slowly people's thinking has "progressed" again.Buddhists believe in the six realms of reincarnation, all sentient beings, life and death, cause and effect, eternal cycle in it.If you eat pigs in this life, in the next life you will be pigs and be eaten by people. Every time you eat, you will suffer. It is so pitiful. (This logic is really absurd. I heard a joke: A monk persuaded a cow killer to change his career, saying that you have killed too many cows, and you will become a cow in the next life. But the cow killer said: "In this case, I will kill a cow Be a monk, because I want to be a monk in my next life.") Emperor Wu of Liang wanted to treat the symptoms as well as the root cause, so he issued an imperial edict before taking the precepts, simply stipulating that monks were not allowed to eat meat under any circumstances.He himself has done a very exemplary job: he only eats one meal a day, and the main content is bean soup and rice, without any greasy or meaty food, which is very simple.Moreover, he also changed the style of indulging in female sex in his early years, cut off intercourse, and never had any luck with any woman after the age of fifty. In addition to vegetarianism, the tradition of ringing bells in temples also originated from Emperor Wu of Liang.He once asked the eminent monk Baozhi: "How can we get rid of the suffering in hell?" Baozhi's answer was: "People's suffering cannot disappear for a while, but if they hear the bell ringing, the suffering will stop temporarily." (This is in It does make sense from a psychological and physical point of view) Emperor Wu of Liang issued an order to ring the bell in the temple, and Hanshan Temple, which "rang to the passenger ship at midnight", was ordered by Emperor Wu of Liang to build it. (Baozhi was a monk with extremely high practice in the first half of the Southern Dynasties. He lived to be ninety-seven years old. It is said that he is the prototype of the folk Jigong Living Buddha.) The irony is that such an emperor who was devoted to Buddhism did not have a high level of Buddhism.Here we have to mention the "unavoidable story" between Emperor Wu of Liang and Patriarch Bodhidharma. After Bodhidharma left his teacher, he went to China to preach in accordance with the instructions of his teacher Prajna Doro.Bodhidharma was from the southern part of Tianzhu, so he took the southern sea route and came to Liang State under the rule of Emperor Wu of Liang.Emperor Wu of Liang welcomed Bodhidharma with a big gift, and asked when they met: "Since I came to the throne, I have built temples, written scriptures, and taught monks, which are innumerable. Do you have any merit?" There is too much investigation and understanding of the deeds of Emperor Wu of Liang. When we met for the first time, we asked ourselves what merits and virtues we had when we first met. Emperor Wu of Liang was eager for quick success and instant benefit.) Bodhidharma said coldly: "There is no merit." Emperor Wu of Liang was in a hurry. If he didn't have merit, wouldn't his busy work be in vain, so he asked, "How can there be no merit?" Bodhidharma said: "This is only a small fruit of cultivation, and it has the cause of omission, but it is as illusory and unreal as a shadow that moves with you." Emperor Wu of Liang asked again: "Then what is true merit?" Bodhidharma replied: "No troubles, harmonious and pure, empty and quiet in body and mind." Emperor Liang Wu felt that the foreign monk was answering an irrelevant question, and wanted to find out, so he asked again: "Then what is the first essence of the Buddhist holy truth?" "Empty and empty, there is no holy truth!" (This answer is exquisite. In fact, everything in the world operates according to the laws of nature. Which one do you say is the holy truth? Just like the Northern Dynasty thought it was China at that time, and called it The Southern Dynasties were Daoyi; the Southern Dynasties recognized themselves as China, and called the Northern Dynasties Suolu. In fact, neither of them understood the world.) But Emperor Wu of Liang was unhappy when he heard this, and said, "Then who is talking to me now?" "do not know." What a confused monk, he doesn't even know himself, where can he seek the way?The two broke up unhappy. (Bodhidharma crossed the river to the north, entered the Northern Wei Dynasty, and lived in the Shaolin Temple in Songshan. He spent nine years "sitting facing the wall, silent all day long". There were so many that Bodhidharma eventually became the first ancestor of Zen, this is gossip.) From the point of view of Buddhism, Emperor Wudi's practice is very shallow.He is still persistent, still obsessed with his great rivers and mountains.The secular Emperor Wu of Liang was proficient in articles, yin and yang, rhythm, riding and shooting, calligraphy, and Go. It is impossible to start a new dynasty, and take advantage of the civil strife in the Northern Dynasty to push the northern border of Liang State a lot. However, no matter how strong a person is, there will be twilight years. This is an objective law, and even the emperor cannot violate it.