Modern people believe that people who believe in Buddhism and practice Buddhism mostly suffer from misfortunes, failed marriages, or have to deal with physical illnesses. Therefore, there have been different opinions on the reason why Li Shutong became a monk for hundreds of years. People couldn't understand why he, who was at the peak of his career and had a wealthy life, wanted to escape into Buddhism without hesitation.
Li Shutong is known as the so-called "pioneer of the New Culture Movement", but in the year before the "May 4th" movement, this passionate man who actively explored Western culture made a big circle, but returned It has gained Chinese tradition and gone deeper and further.
After the "May Fourth Movement", influenced by empirical scientism, the Chinese gradually turned to atheism, and they could not understand Li Shutong's move to become a monk.
A precocious "child prodigy"
On September 23, 1880, Li Shutong was born into a prominent family in Tianjin. On the day he was born, a magpie carried a pine branch in its mouth to the delivery room. People said it was an auspicious gift from the Buddha. His father, Li Xiaolou, was already 68 years old at the time. He was very happy to have a son at this old age and named him Wen Tao, with the courtesy name Shutong. He was the third in the family and had the nickname Sanlang. Li Shutong's mother, Wang, was Li Xiaolou's fifth concubine. She was 20 years old at the time.
Li Shutong’s parents both believe in Buddhism. Li Xiaolou, whose name is Shizhen, was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. He was once the first Jinshi, and together with Li Hongzhang and Wu Rulun, he was known as the three most talented people in the Qing Dynasty. He became an official and was in charge of the Ministry of Personnel. After becoming an official, he ran the salt industry and established a bank. He eventually became a wealthy man in Jinmen and had many contacts with officials of the current dynasty. In his later years, Li Xiaolou respected Wang Yangming's Neo-Confucianism and believed in Zen Buddhism. He was fond of charity and founded charity relief groups and voluntary schools. He was known as "Li Shanren".
Li Shutong was influenced by Buddhism at a young age. When he was 5 years old, his family invited eminent monks to recite the Diamond Sutra for his seriously ill father. Only Li Shutong was able to enter the inner room and listen to Buddhism with his father.
After Li Xiaolou's death, Li Hongzhang personally performed the ceremony for him. The coffin was kept at home for seven days, and many monks chanted sutras day and night. This incident left a deep impression on my uncle. When he was young, his game with his younger brother was to imitate the monks' practices. "Both of them used quilts or bedspreads as cassocks, and played in the house or on the Kang, chanting Buddha's name." Li Shutong's aunt, Guo, and his eldest sister-in-law were also devout Buddhists. As a disciple, he once taught his uncle to recite Buddhist scriptures such as the Great Compassion Mantra.
Li Shutong, a very clever man, started to recite couplets with his father's head when he was learning to speak; when he was 6 or 7 years old, he studied "Selected Works of Zhaoming" and recited it eloquently; when he was 8 years old, he read the Four Books and Five Classics, and he could never remember them. Forget; at the age of 13, he copied the inscriptions and inscriptions of famous people in the past dynasties. He became famous for his seal cutting and calligraphy, and was called a "child prodigy".
However, Li Shutong felt the bitterness of life long ago. When he was 15 years old, he wrote: Life is like the sun on the west mountain, and wealth is like frost on the tiles.
At the age of 16, Li Shutong was admitted to Fu Jen Catholic University to study eight-part essay. He wrote boring stereotypes with great literary talent and often won awards. The format of the eight-part essay test paper is strict, and the words must be written within the printed squares. However, Li Shutong, who was full of literary thoughts, could not express his meaning in the book, so he felt that the short essays were too long, and he often wrote two words in one box, so there was " Li Shuangxing's nickname. At that time, he also learned traditional poetry and seal cutting methods from famous masters.
The young Li Shutong was quite rebellious. He was addicted to opera, which was called a "low industry" at the time. He liked to sing in operas, make guest appearances, and support his favorite Kun Ling. He even fell in love with her but failed.
At the age of 18, Li Shutong married a well-matched girl from the Yu family. This was the daughter of a Tianjin tea merchant whom his mother married for him, and later gave birth to three sons for him (one died in infancy).
The social atmosphere at that time believed that it was difficult to build a country with traditional culture. Affected by this, Li Shutong admired Western ideas and technology. His elder brother allocated a huge sum of money from his family property for him to buy a home. Li Shutong first bought an expensive piano.
During the reform period, Li Shutong was extremely excited and carved the seal "Kangliang of Nanhai is my master" to express his ambition. After the failure of the reform, he was once suspected of being an accomplice. In October 1898, Li Shutong moved to Shanghai with his mother and family, renting in the French Concession.
"Twenty articles shocked the world"
After arriving in Shanghai, this 19-year-old talent from Tianjin quickly became famous in Shanghai for his rare talent and unruly attitude. Every time he writes an article, he must "astound everyone with his skills." Many years later, Li Shutong summarized the state of this period with the sentence "Twenty articles shocked the world, after all, there is no point in talking."
He formed the "Five Friends from the End of the World" with Xu Huanyuan, a leader in Shanghai's new academic circle, Yuan Xilian, a scholar, Cai Xiaoxiang, a Confucian doctor, and Zhang Xiaolou, a famous scholar. These five people with similar interests sang to each other, promoted the idea of ??civil rights, drank tea and discussed arts, immersed in music, chess, calligraphy, painting, romance, and enjoying a romantic and happy life.
In 1901, Li Shutong was admitted to Nanyang Public School (today's Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and studied in the special economics class. He, Huang Yanpei and others studied under Cai Yuanpei. The characteristics of Nanyang Public School are Chinese culture and Western application. He received a relatively systematic education in Confucian classics and also absorbed Western culture. His English score was A-grade and he was rated as "clear in articulation and grammatical skills". He also had a slight grasp of Japanese.
At that time, Li Shutong was most interested in law. He once wrote a paper called "On the Relationship Between Strong Countries and Weak Countries Not Observing Public Laws." During his studies, he also translated the legal works "Book of Legal Studies" and "Private International Law" , the two books had a great influence at the time after they were published.
During this period, Li Shutong once signed up to take the imperial examination, and his answer sheet pointed out the current shortcomings, so he naturally lost his reputation. He failed in all three exams and returned to Nanyang Public School.
During the class strike in 1902, Cai Yuanpei resigned. In order to support the student movement, many of Li Shuping's classmates voluntarily dropped out of school. Later, he joined the "Shanghai Society", opened tutoring courses, held lectures, advocated changing customs, and explored the so-called "new culture, new ethics, and new morality."
In 1905, Li Shutong composed "The Song of the Motherland". Once it was published, it became popular all over the country and was widely sung. Later, he published the "Collection of Chinese Studies Singing", which used "The Book of Songs", "Li Sao", Tang and Song poetry, etc. as lyrics, which were rich in traditional cultural connotations and showed his profound "Chinese Studies" heritage.
Li Shutong promoted the idea of ??male and female autonomy in marriage and wrote "Wenye's New Marriage Drama Script"; he integrated new ideas and new knowledge into opera and created Peking Opera plays such as "Huang Tianba". He performed in person, singing from young students to old students, and won the applause of the whole house; he co-organized the "Calligraphy and Painting News" with Shanghai's famous calligraphers and painters, which made him famous and became a famous calligrapher and painter in Shanghai.
Feng Zikai described what Li Shutong looked like in Shanghai at that time: "A velvet bowl hat with a square of white jade in the middle, a curved vest, a damask robe, fat braids hanging from the back, and a ribbon tied at the bottom. He wore thick-soled shoes, held his head high, and showed his handsomeness. "
"If you ask me how to express my feelings with my voice, don't curse, just play." This was Li Shutong's reaction to his state at that time. portrayal. This rich young man, whose family owns a bank in Shanghai, spends a lot of money, but he is young and frivolous. In addition to interacting with literati, he often socialized with singers and geishas, ??writing songs and poems for them, which was a very dandy style.
Fireworks and willow alleys, sensual dogs and horses, this kind of love and sensual game life, although he is like a fish in water, he himself is worried. 22-year-old Li Shutong wrote to Xu Huanyuan: "The flowers are chasing each other all day long, to If you don't return, you can worry about the future."
Study in Japan and learn Western culture
In April 1905, his mother Wang was seriously ill, and Li Shutong quickly sent for a famous doctor. It worked, but it was a pity that he went to the streets to buy a coffin and was unable to deliver it in person. His mother was only 45 years old at the time.
The grief-stricken Li Shutong carried the coffin back to Tianjin and held a Western-style funeral ceremony for his mother. At the memorial service, family members did not wear white mourning clothes and all wore black clothes. Instead of gongs, drums and suona, Li Shutong filled in the elegy for his mother with the Western "Mass" and played and sang by himself.
After his mother's death, Li Shutong changed his name to "Li Ai" for a time, saying that he "sees through a layer of the world" and "the happy period is gone." Then he entrusted his wife and two sons to his second brother, and went to Japan to study and learn about Western culture.
When he arrived in Japan, Li Shutong followed the local customs. It was still the Qing Dynasty, so he immediately cut off his braids and changed them into the most fashionable three-seven points in the West. Wearing footless glasses, taking off his gown and mandarin jacket, put on a suit and pointed leather shoes. It didn't take long for him to speak pure and fluent Japanese. He spent a huge sum of money to rent a private western-style building in Ueno, Tokyo, and decorated it into a house with a strong literary and artistic atmosphere, which he named "Xiao Mi House".
Li Shutong entered the oil painting department of the Tokyo Art School and received education in Western realism painting. He also attended a music school to study music studies and composition. When learning piano, he did not hesitate to undergo surgery to lengthen the distance between his fingers. Later he published and distributed "Music Magazine", China's first music publication in modern times.
Li Shutong also studied drama and founded China's first drama group Chunliu Club with his classmates. When performing "La Traviata" in Tokyo to raise funds for the floods in China's Huaihe River, he disguised himself as a woman and successfully played La Traviata. She was so graceful and graceful that she was said to surpass Japanese actors. In the performance of "Black Slave Yu Tian Lu", he also played two male and female roles.
After studying in Japan for five years, Li Shutong accepted a large amount of Western modern art and practiced Western modern thought. His personal life was also anti-traditional. During this period, he fell in love freely with a Japanese model and got married.
Returning to China to teach
In 1910, 31-year-old Li Shutong returned to China with his Japanese wife. Soon he took his Japanese wife to live in Shanghai, while his original wife and two sons were left behind in Tianjin.
He was hired by Nanjing Normal University as a painting and music teacher. Later, he was hired by Hangzhou Normal University to teach in both schools. While teaching, he joined the Xiling Seal Society and engaged in epigraphic research and creation.
He is richer than Mr. Natural History, is an expert in calligraphy and epigraphy, and is the originator of Chinese drama. He is not only able to teach pictures and music, he uses many other knowledge as a background to teach his pictures and music.”
Li Shutong's desk book is a copy of "Human Genealogy" written by Liu Zongzhou in the Ming Dynasty. On the cover, Li Shutong wrote the words "Practice it personally". He often used the words and deeds of ancient sages in books to teach students, and he also taught without words. He was extremely serious and meticulous in his work. He even walked without looking sideways.
At this time, Li Shutong took off his dress and put on a gray coarse cloth robe, a black cloth mandarin jacket and cloth-soled shoes. His gold-rimmed glasses were also replaced by black wire-rimmed glasses. His understanding of art began to return to orthodoxy, returning to Confucian literary and artistic concepts. He believed that literati's self-cultivation was more important than art, and artistic ethics was more important than skill training.
"The hobby of those who work on painting must be noble, and their conduct must be noble." "If a writer and artist does not have the knowledge of tools, no matter how proficient and proficient the technique is, it will be insignificant." The knowledge of tools refers to cultivation and realm. Li Shutong regarded the cultivation of "artistic virtues" as the basic criterion for training students. "To be a good writer and artist, you must first be a good person." His highest goal in training students is that "literature and art should be passed down from person to person, and should not be passed down from person to person." Literary Biography".
Following the traditional saying "No one is good at music when changing customs", Li Shutong attached great importance to music education and believed that music has a great edifying effect on people's temperament. He advocated the aesthetic education ideal of "beautifying the world with beauty" and believed that art It has the power to improve morality.
While Li Shutong boldly introduced Western art and music, he also attached great importance to traditional Chinese painting and music rhythm, and tried to integrate Chinese and Western art. He impressed students and colleagues with his knowledge and personality. He sent money to Liu Zhiping every month to support his study abroad expenses in Japan until he completed his studies. He did not ask for repayment and told Liu Zhiping not to tell others. During his seven years as a teacher, he successively trained famous painter Feng Zikai, musician Liu Zhiping and many celebrities.
In the field of art, Li Shutong created many firsts and changed the history of Chinese art. He was the first to introduce Western painting in China, the first to create Chinese newspaper advertising paintings, and the first to create and advocate modern Chinese woodblock prints. He wrote "History of Western Art", "Overview of European Literature", "Usage of Plaster Models" and other works, which were all ranked first among Chinese people at that time.
Li Shutong was a pioneer in introducing Western drama to China and a pioneer in spreading Western music. He was the first to introduce Western music theory to China, the first to introduce Western musical instruments and staff, and the first to promote piano music in China; his composition and lyrics of "Spring Outing" is my country's earliest three-part vocal work; the popular "Farewell" draws lessons from Western music At the same time, it inherits traditional Chinese culture, and the lyrics are profound and full of the aesthetic conception of Chinese classical poetry.
This all-rounder and generalist, who has learned from ancient and modern times and integrated Chinese and Western knowledge, has nowhere to feel at ease as his career reaches its peak. In Li Shutong's view, literature and art still belong to the category of "skills". No matter how good literature and art are, it is just a branch of knowledge and not the ultimate truth. However, the impermanence and fleetingness of life are the unavoidable essence of Yoshi's gorgeous life.
Leave the world and become a monk.
In 1916, Li Shutong went to Hangzhou Hupao Temple to fast during the holidays. At first, he wanted to use this to cure the neurasthenia that had been tormenting him for a long time. Some miraculous experiences during this period made him realize many things. At the same time, he also came into contact with many Buddhist scriptures and gained a further understanding of the illusion of attachment to fame and wealth. The next year, Li Shutong went to listen to the Dharma again and changed his name to "Li Ying" to express the meaning of rebirth.
In 1918, he spent the Lunar New Year period in Hupao Temple and became a lay disciple, named Yanyin and Hongyi. After returning to school, although he continued to teach as usual, he became a vegetarian and chanted sutras, and his taste for the world became less and less.
On the 13th day of the seventh lunar month in 1918, Li Shutong donated or destroyed the collection that he had regarded as treasures for many years, including books, calligraphy and painting seals, folding fans, gold watches, etc., and then went to Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou to receive the full blessing. He was 39 years old at the time and officially became a monk.
In fact, before he became a monk, Li Shutong once used the metaphor of lotus to express his feelings of "being unsullied and achieving wisdom". He also wrote to Liu Zhiping, "If you are not a sycophant, your life will not last forever, and because of the depth of your sins since the beginning, you have to practice cultivation quickly..." At that time, friends thought he was just talking, and ordinary literati often said it. I didn't expect that he meant what he said.
Huang Yanpei’s memoirs describe the farewell between Li Shutong and his Japanese wife: After Hongyi became a monk, his Japanese wife rushed from Shanghai to Hangzhou and found her husband through two friends. "After walking through several temples, I found one and asked my uncle to go to the Linhu Vegetarian Restaurant in front of the Yue Temple to have a meal. When the three of them asked questions, it was only the uncle who answered them. At the end of the meal, the uncle never said a word of his own initiative, nor did he take the initiative to speak. He raised his head and opened his eyes to look at the three of them. After dinner, Shutong left and returned to the temple. He hired a small boat and the three of them went to the boat. When the boat started sailing, Shutong never looked back. The oars swung towards the center of the lake, until the people and the boat were buried in the depths of the lake, and nothing could be seen. In the end, Shutong still didn't care, and Mrs. Shutong returned crying."
Hong Yi wrote. The letter informed the family in Tianjin that he had become a monk, asked his family members to eat fast and chant Buddha's name, and also asked his two sons to study hard. His family in Tianjin often wrote to him, but Hong Yi never opened the letter. The trustee wrote on the back of the envelope: "This person has passed away, and all the envelopes will be returned intact." His first wife, Yu, died of illness when she was less than 50 years old. At that time, the family wrote to Hong Yi I sent a letter of condolence but received no reply. Later, someone discovered that Master Hongyi had copied sutras for his deceased wife.
Li Shutong’s colleague Jiang Danshu once had a conversation with Li Shutong before he became a monk:
Jiang Danshu: “Do you want to become a monk?”
Li Shutong: “Yes. ."
Jiang Danshu: "Why?"
Li Shutong: "Do nothing."
Jiang Danshu asked again: "A passionate person can bear to throw away his flesh and blood. "Yeah?"
Li Shutong "What will happen if you die of tiger epidemic?"
What if you die of a sudden illness or cholera comes, even if you can't bear to leave your wife and children? Any solution?
Leaving the world and never looking back at Zhang Gu, Li Shutong ended the world in this way, which was related to his pure purpose of becoming a monk. In his Zen room, he wrote the four words "Although he is alive, he is still alive".
In his view, becoming a monk is for matters of life and death, and the relationships between wives, children, and friends can be broken. In this short life, relatives will be separated sooner or later, and the deadline will always come. To become a monk is just to advance it.
The elegant and unruly young man turned into a veritable ascetic monk
In his early years as a monk, Li Shutong hardly saw any visitors. Except for giving lectures, he replied to diligent visitors with "Recite the Buddha's name honestly". Don't say a word.
Xia Jianzun once saw Hongyi and many monks crowded into a crowded Zen room, then collecting water from the river, rinsing his teeth with fresh bamboo, and the towel was as tattered as a rag. Xia Chuzun wanted to change him to a new one, but Hongyi said: "It's still useful, there is no need to change it." In his opinion, the tattered mats, towels, cabbage, radish, pickles, are all good, everything is fine.
His eyes were lowered and his face was solemn. The young man who used to live a refined and elegant life has become a veritable ascetic. There is only one wooden bed in the room. When traveling, I always have a seat, a quilt, and an umbrella, and sometimes I even carry my own luggage. He did all the laundry and mending by himself. Get up at dawn every day and wipe your body with cold water. If you get sick, you never notice it. He was ill in bed, and someone came to greet him. He said, "Don't ask me if I'm cured. Ask me if I've recited the Buddha's name."
Hongyi strictly adheres to the most rigorous and rigid Vinaya. The precepts have become a model for adhering to Buddhism's "three thousand majestic rituals and eighty thousand meticulous practices". He eats only one meal a day and does not eat after noon. Among vegetarian dishes, don't eat cabbage, winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, etc., because their prices are much more expensive than other vegetarian dishes.
In 1924, Hong Yi asked to see Yin Guang, but he was turned away from the mountain gate by Yin Guang, who never saw any visitors. He waited from dawn to dusk before finally meeting Yin Guang and practicing with him for seven days. These seven days profoundly affected his future spiritual practice. Hongyi carefully studied the Vinaya sect that had been discontinued for more than 700 years, wrote books, and practiced it. In the second half of his life, he worked tirelessly to travel around the world and promote the Vinaya sect.
Every time he went to lecture on the law, Hongyi made three rules before leaving: he would not be a teacher, he would not hold a welcome party, and he would not boast in newspapers. In order to prevent others from picking up the boat, he sometimes even temporarily changed his boat to another boat. Except for lecturing on laws, he refused to accept guests behind closed doors, and it was difficult for the mayor and other senior officials to invite him. In his later years, when Hongyi was lecturing in Fujian, he suddenly received a letter from a young man accusing him of being too busy socializing. Hongyi reflected on himself and felt deeply ashamed. He immediately wrote back and said: "I will immediately follow the order to practice hard behind closed doors and give up everything."
At the end of 1937, bombings continued in Xiamen. Hongyi gave a speech to the public and tried his best to help all sentient beings overcome the disaster. When he was promoting Buddhism in southern Fujian, Xiamen fell, and his friends advised him to go to the mainland for safety. He composed a verse and said:
A branch of chrysanthemum stands tall,
High standard for the evening festival.
The color of the cloud is bright red,
Martyrdom should bleed.
If it’s not a Buddhist book, I won’t write it. If it’s not the Buddha’s words, I won’t say it.
After becoming a monk, Hongyi vowed: If it’s not a Buddhist book, I won’t write it. If it’s not a Buddhist word, I won’t say it. He believed that "indulging in calligraphy will lead to increased indulgence, as the Buddha deeply warned", and he resolutely cut off the drama, oil painting, Western music and other arts that he had been fascinated by. Originally, he had lost all other skills, but later he retained calligraphy because he could "write Buddhist words to create relationships and benefit living beings." The most common thing Hong Yi writes is "taking precepts as a teacher", and he also often writes: "I don't seek happiness for myself, but I hope all living beings can be freed from suffering."
Hong Yi's calligraphy is so skillful that it gathers the spirit and hides the edge. Clumsy is already a trace of the soul. He is meticulous in his writing, and only when he is not cautious can he be angry, and not aggressive or aggressive. Liu Zhiping recalled that Hongyi was extremely slow in writing, and it took him two hours to complete a five-foot-long painting.
In a lecture on writing methods, Hong Yi once said to a monk: "If you can only write a few good characters, and if you don't concentrate on studying Buddhism, even if others praise him for how well he writes, it will be nothing more. It's just "people pass it down through words"! I think that even if a monk's calligraphy is not well written, if the people are harsh and moral, then his handwriting is very precious, and the result is that it can be "passed down through people's words"; if there is no research on Buddhism, , but has no morals, even if he can write very well, this kind of person is of no importance in Buddhism..."
He confessed to himself that his sins were serious, and the strict precepts were not enough to eliminate obstacles
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Li Shutong is known as the so-called "pioneer of the New Culture Movement", but in the year before the "May 4th" movement, this passionate man who actively explored Western culture made a big circle and returned to China. Tradition and going deeper and further.
He was rich and talented throughout his life, but he was depressed with nowhere to settle in his heart. This is difficult for people who are obsessed with reality to understand. After the May Fourth Movement, influenced by empirical scientism, the Chinese gradually turned to atheism, and of course they could not understand Li Shutong's move to become a monk.
While people were still lamenting Li Shutong's extraordinary talent, he completely denied all the poetry and absurd life of his youth. In 1923, Xiling Seal Publishing House printed a copy of his "Collection of Poems for Washing the Tong", which was criticized by Hongyi as "containing too much nonsense, with a low style and no sense of appreciation". Loose words refer to words that are frivolous, rude, inappropriate, and that make people think evil. In 1929, Kaiming Bookstore asked Hongyi to write calligraphy models. At first he agreed, but later regretted it. The important reason for his regret was that some words were difficult for monks to write. It is suitable, such as the sword department, where there are many cruel and vicious words, and the women's department, which is even more unspeakable, and the corpse department, which has even more extremely obscene words...
Hongyi constantly reflects on his past "romantic rogue" , he once told Feng Zikai that before he became a monk, he was blindly bookish and didn't understand anything about the world.
In "The Last Confession", he wrote: "I have been doing evil since I was a child, and I am becoming more and more depraved day by day. Although my body is not an animal, my heart is no different from an animal..."
When he was 60 years old, Hongyi summed up his various experiences since his childhood with the phrase "cannot bear to look back". He confessed that his sins were so serious that it would not be possible to eliminate obstacles without strict discipline.
Against the backdrop of a general rejection of tradition and religious belief, Hongyi declared: Buddhism is not superstition, Buddhism is not religion, Buddhism is not philosophy, and Buddhism is not contrary to science. He became a monk not because he was tired of the world, nor because he wanted to escape from the world, but because he understood life thoroughly. Since the body is an illusory existence, glory, wealth, fame, or descendants and family fortune are things outside the body. The world's academics, painting, music and other literature and art are just temporary illusory beauty. Returning to one's roots and pursuing the ultimate truth is the true meaning of life.
After becoming a monk, Li Shutong’s heart, which was agitated by the unpredictable world, finally found peace.
"I will always come to this world."
In the spring of 1942, Hongyi went to Lingrui Mountain to give lectures, and soon lived in Wenling Nursing Home. The Mid-Autumn Festival was held on August 15th. Lectures on sutras to the public, and explains the essentials of the Pure Land Dharma to the elderly in the courtyard. On the 23rd day of the lunar calendar, Hongyi showed slight illness, but refused medical treatment and visits, and only focused on chanting the Buddha's name.
On the 27th, Hongyi went on a hunger strike and drank only water. On the 28th, he wrote a will and asked Master Miaolian to take charge of his funeral affairs. On the afternoon of September 1st, Hongyi wrote "Sorrow and Joy" on a piece of paper, handed it to Master Miaolian, and told him: If you see me crying when you are helping me remember, it is not because I miss the world or my loved ones, but because I feel the mixture of sadness and joy. . He also specifically told him that when his breathing stopped, he should wait until the heat dissipated before sending him to be cremated. When his body was placed in a niche, he should use four small bowls to fill the niches and then fill them with water to prevent ants from climbing up. When doing so, you can avoid damaging the ants. He believed that he was not lucky enough, and said that when he was cremated, "you don't have to wear good clothes, just old shorts to cover your lower hair."
After saying this, Hongyi kept chanting the Buddha's name silently. Before his death, Master Hongyi also said this: "I will come to this world." "Sakyamuni Buddha has endless connections with our world, and so do we with the future world."
On the fourth day of Xu Shi (7pm to 9pm), Hongyi lay on his right side and passed away peacefully at the age of 63. This day is October 13, 1942 AD.
Early the next morning, Xia Zunzun received a letter from Hong Yi:
Xia Zunzun, a lay scholar, had moved on the 4th day of September (the date was the day after the instructing). fill in). Zeng wrote two verses, which are appended below:
The friendship between gentlemen is as light as water;
If you hold on to an image and seek it, you will be a thousand miles away.
Ask me what's the right time, and Kuo'er says nothing;
The branches are full of spring, and the moon is full in the heart of the sky.
Kinda, not announced. Sound starts.
The usual explanation of "the mixture of sorrow and joy" is that on the one hand, one is happy about one's own liberation, and on the other hand, one feels sorry for the suffering of all living beings.
After being a monk for 28 years, Master Hongyi’s last relics were a hundred-year-old robe, a few quilts and an umbrella. He sewed more than 200 patches on Bai Nie's clothes with his own hands.
Seven days after Master Hongyi passed away, he respected his will: "The niche used in the nursing home will be sent to Chengtian Temple for incineration." After the ceremony, 1,800 relics and 600 pieces of relics were obtained.
Master Hongyi is revered as the eleventh ancestor of the Vinaya Sect, and is known as the "Four Great Monks of the Republic of China" together with Yinguang, Taixu and Xuyun.
Reference materials:
"The Complete Works of Li Shutong"
"The Art of Living" by Xia Chengzun
"Remembering Mr. Li Shutong" by Feng Zikai,
Jiang Danshu's "Records of the Praise of Master Hongyi"
Ou Qijin and Sheng Yi's "Bringing out the Old and Bringing in the New: The Impact of Nanyang Public School's Special Economics Class on Li Shutong"
Chen Hailiang, Jiang Danshu and others' "Collection of Master Hongyi's Everlasting Thoughts"
Lin Ziqing's "Chronology of Master Hongyi"