Chapter 36 Chapter Thirty-Four

The car stopped at the foot of the mountain, and the two walked up the mountain.This time Xie Huiren wore a pair of soft-soled casual leather shoes, and he walked briskly on the mountain road.It's just that carrying a heavy hoe on his shoulders made him feel unnatural. When the car passed by a nearby farmer, Xie Huiren thought of buying it on the spur of the moment.As he carried it back to the car, he saw Sally staring at him with wide-eyed eyes, as if looking at an alien visitor. "What is this for?" Xie Huiren pretended to be very mysterious, and said softly, "Don't forget, we may have to dig for treasure."

However, Xie Huiren was a little worried now, with the hoe on his shoulders, every step he took on the mountain road made him feel a little heavier, making him cry secretly.To be honest, although he grew up in the countryside, Xie Huiren didn't know how to do any farm work at all. He thought a hoe was as light as a shovel.He began to worry about whether his hands used to holding pens would move this guy. It seemed that the handle of the pick had been worn smooth and slipped on his shoulders. He couldn't imagine how rough hands could hold it. live it. When he reached the open space in front of the mountain gate, Xie Huiren was finally able to put down the hoe. His shoulder was moving and his other hand was rubbing it, which seemed to be heavily pressed.Sally leaned over and patted his shoulder lightly with her small hands, which made Xie Huiren feel much more comfortable. He turned his head and smiled at Sally, his face suddenly sank, and he said seriously, "The ground of Buddhism."

Sally stuck out her tongue and made a grimace, and the two looked at each other and smiled. "Okay, we have to find a place with a pillar." Just as they were about to walk into the temple, Sally tugged at the hem of his clothes, "Brother, I remember, there doesn't seem to be any pillars in the temple?" This is indeed what Xie Huiren has considered. This small temple does not conform to the institutional system of a temple. At best, it is just a nunnery dedicated to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.In a formal temple, where they are standing now, there should be a mountain gate hall, and generally there are three mountain gates, namely the empty gate, the non-phase gate and the non-existent gate, collectively called the "three liberation gates".And at least, one of them should be built into a palace, and there are two Vajra Warriors inside.

It is said in the "Great Treasure Accumulation Sutra" that there was a Dharma prince who swore that he would become a vajra fighter after converting to the Buddha, so he later became the leader of the Buddha's 500 vajra entourage guards, called "Secret King Kong".It was originally a person, but Chinese culture pays attention to symmetry, so another one was added to the statue, but one opened and the other closed.According to their different mouth shapes, later generations said that one is pronouncing the sound of "ah" and the other is pronouncing the sound of "hum". According to Buddhism, these two sounds are the two sounds at the beginning and end of Sanskrit. The root of all speech and sound.Later, some people even said that these two king kong were the "two humming generals" in the movie, and the more it spread, the more chaotic it became.

After the Shanmen Hall, there should generally be the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, and then the main hall is the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the main statue inside is Maitreya Bodhisattva, and the rest are the Four Heavenly Kings and Wei Tuotian.Many small temples merged the Shanmen and Tianwang Hall together, and canceled the bell tower and drum tower.This is already a relatively simple system.But the temple in front of me is obviously more crude, even the Hall of Heavenly Kings has been cancelled, but the mountain gate has been made with double eaves, which looks like a temple without front and rear walls.After entering the mountain gate, the Daxiong Palace can be seen at a glance, while the rest of the system cannot be seen.

Xie Huiren replied to Sally, "This temple is indeed a small temple, without such a comprehensive system. In fact, I also thought that there are no pillars here. Let's try our luck and find something like a pillar." What is it called?Sally shook her head secretly, this is nonsense. Xie Huiren suddenly remembered an interesting incident. He pointed to an open space in front of the mountain gate, where there was a stone base, as if something should have stood on it before. "Do you remember? There used to be a stone tablet here." Sally thought for a while, then shook her head, "I can't remember."

"Actually, even if there is, you may not know what it is." Xie Huiren said with a smile, thinking about the past, "The words on the stone tablet were very vague back then. Now, some villager built a house and took it away." .” Sally is still remembering, but obviously she can't remember clearly at all. She was too young at that time, and didn't care about an inconspicuous stone tablet at all. "What is written on it?" "Haha." Xie Huiren couldn't help laughing, "Actually, I don't know. Master told me later. In those days, when festivals came, there would always be villagers who came to the temple to make offerings. Some of them didn't understand. There's even wine."

Sally also laughed, "Wine? This shouldn't be in temples." "That's right. That's why there is an inscription on the stele 'Do not allow meat and wine to enter the mountain gate'. This is also a common thing in front of the mountain gate of modern temples." Xie Huiren rolled his eyes, paused deliberately, and continued, "But, later on The monk who likes to drink deliberately pronounced this sentence as "No meat is allowed, and wine enters the mountain gate." Sally burst into laughter. "So, the inscription on the later inscription changed the words and sentences, and it said 'meat and wine are not allowed to enter the mountain gate'." Xie Huiren thought for a while, and said regretfully, "It's a pity that temples often don't pay much attention to protecting these things. Now this kind of stele It is rare. In fact, many temples have some rare treasures, but they have not been valued by monks, and they are gradually lost or destroyed."

"Then tell me, will there be treasures here?" Xie Huiren showed a mischievous expression, as if teasing a child, "Maybe. Let's go, let's go find Bao." After entering the mountain gate, Xie Huiren decided to go to the main hall to have a look first. Obviously, the house with pillars can only be the main hall. There were originally four wooden pillars outside the walls of the main hall. As Xie Huiren saw the day before, they had been burned, leaving black traces of fire.The pillar stood on a stone platform, and that platform was paved with a whole piece of big bluestone. At least, Xie Huiren didn't believe there was anything hidden under it.

Let's start with the simplest place first, Xie Huiren thought, there are still four columns in the main hall, and the bricks and stones on the ground of the main hall are small pieces, and Xie Huiren clearly remembers that when he was young, those bricks were loose, and in some places Even a few pieces were missing. Entering the main hall, Sally let out a cry of surprise.Xie Huiren knew that she saw the dilapidated scene in the hall.Although he was mentally prepared, he was quite surprised.Although the furnishings in the temple were old back then, they were always tidy and neatly arranged. However, now, the word mess cannot be used to describe it, but... a bit like after the war.Xie Huiren didn't know how to think of such a word, but he thought it was quite appropriate. The incense case was knocked down, two legs were missing and collapsed to the side, the cattail mat was torn or trampled on, and it flew all over the place in a mess. The roof of the house was obviously also damaged by man-made damage, with bricks and pieces of wood falling to the ground.The most severely damaged is undoubtedly the Buddha statue.This is a small temple, and only one statue of Sakyamuni Buddha is enshrined. Undoubtedly, the uniqueness made it suffer more damage.

The Buddha statue has been broken, and the original simple back screen has completely disappeared, falling to the ground to form scattered fragments.The Buddha statue has been hit by a blunt instrument, and the protruding and weak places such as ears and fingers have been completely destroyed.Now, it can only be vaguely seen that it is still smiling, and its eyes are still soft and distant. The light of Buddha shines everywhere. Xie Huiren touched Sally lightly, "Do you still remember the original appearance of the Buddha statue?" Sally shook her head, "I don't remember, but no matter what, I didn't expect it to be destroyed like this." Xie Huiren nodded and continued, "Yes, I still remember Master told me that the Buddha statue's legs are tied with the 'auspicious seat', the left hand is tied with the 'fixing seal', and the right hand is tied with the 'touching ground seal'. This is Shakyamuni's 'enlightenment form'. Unfortunately, now I can only vaguely see it." Sally also looked at it regretfully, and suddenly smiled slightly, and said, "I remember you still meditating." Xie Huiren smiled helplessly, "It happened when I was a child, but I didn't practice well. I dozed off when I crossed my legs, and I always had delusions, thinking about this and that. If I can't pass this level, meditation is useless." "Are you still fighting now?" Xie Huiren shook his head slowly, "I just want to be a Buddhist student now. Buddhism is too vast, and it would be nice to learn more. It's like the sea. People can't drink up the seawater, but they can take a sip. Just take one sip, or two sips if you can, it's all by chance." Sally nodded thoughtfully, then clasped her hands together, and bowed to the ruined Buddha statue. Xie Huiren smiled, and showed her a demonstration, "This is the vajra palm-joined gesture. If you want to do this, this is the clapped-palm gesture." "Almost." Sally followed his movements again, and then asked, "You mean, this is also a handprint?" "It's a mudra. Although it is very ordinary, it is very particular. It symbolizes the bud of a lotus flower, which means bodhicitta. In fact, it also has health care effects." Sally blinked, "Health care?" "That's right, Steven Ram, a professor of medicine at New York University in the United States, has studied that putting your hands together can relax your body and mind to the greatest extent. If a person spends half an hour to an hour a day doing this action, it will have a great impact on the body over time. Great benefit." "Really." Sally smiled mischievously, "Then I will do it every day from now on." Xie Huiren thought of another funny thing and said, "Actually, when you were young, you did another kind of handprint." "Me?" Sally shook her head, "How could I?" "You will, think about it, smart one." "Hehe." Sally remembered that when Yixiu was thinking about problems, he always sat cross-legged, closed his big eyes, folded his palms upwards, and put his thumbs together, forming a circle. "It's like this." Sally imitated playfully. "No, no." Xie Huiren corrected her, "In India, the right is respected, and the right hand is considered to be cleaner than the left, so the right hand should be on top. But in China, the left is respected, so many temples are on the left and right sides of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It's all turned upside down, and the important disciples are placed on the left." "Yeah." Sally did it again, "This time it's right, you said, is this also a handprint?" "Of course, this is called the Fajie Seal." "Brother, you really know a lot. You can hold a plenum of Buddhist mudras?" Xie Huiren pretended to be taken aback, "How is that possible? There are too many Buddhist mudras. It is said that there are 387 mudras in Tantric Buddhism alone." "My God! Brother, can you have so many changes in your hands?" "The Buddhist handprints may have evolved from the gestures of dancers in the ancient South Asian subcontinent. I have seen some, and they are indeed very similar. Later, they were absorbed into the Buddhist family. But..." In the middle of Xie Huiren's speech, he suddenly thought of a very important question... Could it be like that? But Sally urged him, "But what?" Xie Huiren had no choice but to interrupt his thinking, and continued: "However, there is another theory. The ancient Chinese usually put their seals on fans, while the ancient Indians engraved their seals on rings..." He spoke more and more slowly, as if I was thinking about the question just now again, "So, the 'yin' in the handprint is related to the seal, and it is also called 'yinqi'. In fact, the word 'qi' obviously has..." He suddenly stopped talking, and thought for a while, "Sally, you said that some families use the patterns on jewelry as monograms?" "Yeah, we've auctioned things like that. You mean..." "Phasi Bawen!" The two shouted in unison. Xie Huiren was stunned by his bold idea, he muttered to himself, "This is really strange, so strange, this is the practice of ancient India, could it be..." Sally pushed him, "Don't think about it, let's find treasure!" As she said that, she made another legal seal that a clever Yixiu often makes when thinking about problems, "Let me think about it..."