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There is a famous stele in Xi'an Forest of Steles called "The Preface Stele of Sanzang of the Tang Dynasty", which was written by Emperor Taizong Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty to promote Buddhism and praise the feat of Tang Sanzang's seventeen-year journey to the west to learn Buddhist scriptures. Calligrapher Wang Xizhi - Tang Dynasty articles were written by Jin Dynasty calligraphers more than 300 years earlier. Isn't this Guan Gong fighting Qin Qiong?
The value of an inscription lies not only in the historical significance of its content, but also in the artistic charm of its calligraphy. The carriers of calligraphy inheritance are steles and posts, and the methods of learning calligraphy from ancient times to the present are not too close to the steles and posts. Therefore, when talking about the author of a stele, sometimes it refers to the creator of the content of the inscription, and more often it refers to the creator of the calligraphy of the inscription.
The calligrapher of the Sanzang Shengjiao Stele in the Tang Dynasty was originally Chu Suiliang, a calligrapher in the early Tang Dynasty, and then the monk Huairen carved the inscriptions from Wang Xizhi's calligraphy. Li Shimin's articles were also carved in the words of two other calligraphers. However, Wang Xizhi's artistic achievement is the highest, so the Preface Stele of the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty in the Forest of Steles in Xi'an is famous all over the world for its calligraphy.
(The Monument of the Preface to the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty (imitation), photographed at the Xuanzang Museum of Sutra Learning in Guazhou, Gansu)
In fact, this "Preface to the Holy Teachings of the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty" itself is also a beautiful article, and it has a general record of the development of Buddhism in the early Tang Dynasty. As the "Heavenly Khan" who "can lift the pen to secure the world, and use martial arts to determine the world", Li Shimin showed in the article that he was ashamed and admired Xuanzang like a schoolboy. He wrote at the end of the article (translated into vernacular): " I have never been talented, nor intelligent, especially because I have never read many Buddhist scriptures, and the prefaces I wrote are rough and complicated. Now I suddenly see a letter from a master who praises me. Come, I really feel ashamed." It can be seen that Li Shimin loves and respects Xuanzang.
If you know something about Li Shimin's life, even if you only know the fact that he was the founder of a great empire, you can imagine his unruly intelligence and sharp vision. Five people, no matter who judges, Li Shimin must be on the list. What kind of existence is Xuanzang, who is admired by the emperor through the ages?
A kind of existence that can risk one's life for the sake of academic ideals, let alone glory and wealth!
Xuanzang in history is not the cowardly "sage" who can't tell right from wrong in "Journey to the West", let alone the long-winded talker who is full of reason in "Journey to the West", but an intelligent, precocious, wise, A sage who is not obsessed with authority but has a firm will.
Xuanzang became a monk at the age of 13. When he was young, he determined to study Buddhism and Taoism. He traveled around to visit famous teachers. During his study tour, he found that the words of the eminent monks were different, and the records in the ancient books were also different, so he had the idea of traveling west to seek the Dharma. He once submitted to the imperial court to ask to go abroad but was not allowed. In the third year of Zhenguan (629), a natural disaster and famine occurred. The imperial court allowed the people to survive on their own. Jietuo King Shecheng. Escaping the tiger's mouth and resisting the temptation along the way, the "nine-nine-eighty-one difficulties" in the novel are only a lot more in reality. Without the protection of Wukong, Bajie, Drifting, and Bailong, Xuanzang relied on a Faith, dragging the mortal body to carry it over.
In Nalanda Temple, the center of Buddhism in India, he delved into the theory of Buddhism secretly, and then traveled to several countries in India. He once debated with thousands of scholars in Wuyin City in Qunv City. , respectively honored as "Mahayana Heaven" and "Liberation Heaven" by India and Mahayana, famous all over the world.
In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, Xuanzang returned to Chang'an and was summoned by Tang Taizong. Seeing his imposing manner and extraordinary conversation, Emperor Taizong wanted to confer an official title, but Xuanzang was unmoved, he only wanted to translate scriptures and study Buddhism. The emperor saw that his ambition was determined, so he built a temple and recruited monks to help him translate scriptures. In the following twenty years, Xuanzang translated seventy-five volumes of the Mahayana scriptures and 1,335 volumes. He was the master who translated the most scriptures in the history of our country. It was written in Sanskrit and introduced to India; he wrote the twelve-volume "Da Tang Western Regions" based on what he saw and heard during his journey to the west, which later became the prototype of "Journey to the West".
(Murals of Xuanzang's life)
Xuanzang lived more than 1,300 years ago, and the time gap will blur the judgment on the difficulty of choosing or choosing beliefs, making us mistakenly think that the nobility of the ancients is taken for granted. In fact, regardless of ancient and modern times, "the rich have distant relatives in the mountains, and the poor have no one to ask" is an eternal market philosophy. The temptation of secular success to people today is no higher than the temptation to ancient people.
Can you imagine that in today's colorful world, a person devotes himself to his ideals when he is young, but doesn't bother to enjoy it after he becomes famous?
Can you imagine that in today's hustle and bustle, a person who has no complaints when no one cares about him can still be poor among the stars?
How rare it is for such a person to appear today, it is equally rare for Xuanzang to appear in the Tang Dynasty thousands of years ago!
Therefore, such people have thousands of years of human history, and there are only a handful of them!
If Li Shimin, as an emperor through the ages, is the ceiling of secular success, then Tang Sanzang is the eternal beacon and the steering wheel of the human spirit.
Therefore, Li Shimin's respect for Tang Sanzang not only respects him as a person, but also represents that human beings will always have metaphysical pursuits beyond the sensory world.
(The sculpture of Xuanzang outside the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an stands quietly in the bustling singing and dancing in the city that never sleeps in the Tang Dynasty)
Wu Chengen's "Journey to the West" is fake, but the description between the four masters and apprentices traveling westward and returning to Chang'an, and being taken to the West by the Buddha, that is, the Tang monk was received by the Tang king and opened the altar to teach Buddhism. It is based on historical facts. Yes, the "Preface to the Holy Teachings of the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty" mentioned above is recorded in the last chapter without a word - "Going back to the East, the Five Sages Come True", Li Shimin's praise of Xuanzang is also Wu Chengen's praise In the praise of Journey to the West, two sentences touched me deeply-"Thousands of miles of mountains and rivers, the haze and haze make progress; a hundred heavy cold and heat, the frost and rain follow."
When I read these two sentences, I was on my way west by car, and suddenly I was moved to retrace the path of the sages, and I was more motivated than ever. Although the routes and conditions are completely different, we have all experienced the distance of the journey, the alternation of cold and heat, and the encounters of haze, frost and rain. Moreover, on the Tasha Ancient Trail in Xinjiang, I did cross hundreds of kilometers of routes with Xuanzang. The thrilling hardships and dangers made me respect Xuanzang even more.
So, this self-driving trip starting from Qingdao and heading west, I decided to call it "Journey to the West".
In the novel, before Tang Sanzang’s trip, the king of Tang gave cassocks and tin staffs and sworn brothers, and all the officials and people sent him off with a grand ceremony. In history, Xuanzang escaped from Chang’an, and he was in a hurry and did not make enough preparations. Although I am not in a hurry, this is the first time I have driven a long distance by myself. I have no experience. I only brought some clothes and an emergency starter, and I went on the road. It's useless, but there are still some things missing, which will be elaborated later when I encounter trouble.
This day is April 6, 2021, a pleasant and breezy spring day.
Depart at 3:00 p.m., fill up the gas, drive on the Qinglan Expressway, there are not many cars, the scenery outside the window flows east, and the happy mood goes west all the way. After 4 hours and 320km, we arrived in Jinan.
I have already transferred to this city three years ago, and stayed for one night as a passing station, and also planned where to go tomorrow.
Before I set off, I didn't plan any specific places to go, just as I didn't think carefully about what to bring. This is all the way, basically planning the next day's itinerary the day before. What is "traveling as soon as you say it" is why you think so much, let's go on the road first.
There is no specific plan, but there is a general direction: to go to places that were missed or inconvenient when taking public transportation before, and go by car. The first thing to make up is the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.
So early the next morning, I set off for the northwest, passed through Hebei, and came to Ying County in Shuozhou, Shanxi.
(Passing through Pingxingguan Pass in Xinzhou, Shanxi, where the great victory of Pingxingguan in the Anti-Japanese War took place)
Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, also known as Shakya Pagoda of Fogong Temple, was built in 1056 and is 67.31 meters high. It is the tallest and oldest pure wooden pavilion-style building in the world. Nice world record. Two years ago on the way from Taiyuan to Datong, I heard the name of the wooden pagoda. I saw it today, and it really is "the beauty of the floating picture, the best in the universe".
The preciousness of the wooden tower lies not only in its material and shape, but also in its structure, craftsmanship, cultural relics and culture.
The tower is a nine-story double-layer sleeve structure. The whole tower does not use a single nail, but is made of wooden components and 59 kinds of brackets. There are 52 plaques and 6 couplets hanging inside and outside the tower. Among them, "Junji Shengong" was written by Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, and "World Wonders" was written by Ming Wuzong Zhu Houzhao.
It is said that the wooden pagoda is perishable and easy to be destroyed, but for thousands of years, the wooden pagoda in Yingxian County has not been burned by lightning, strong earthquakes and wars. Two Buddha tooth relics were found in the belly, making the wooden pagoda a rare pagoda in China that enshrines the real remains of Buddha Sakyamuni Buddha.
The wooden pagoda is located in the Fogong Temple in the northwest corner of the old city of Yingxian County. More than 100 years earlier.
It was almost evening after visiting the wooden pagoda, and I drove more than 200 kilometers north to Wulanchabu, Inner Mongolia. In addition to the 600 kilometers from Jinan to Ying County during the day, I was on the road for 11 hours and 800 kilometers on this day. It was the longest drive, and only by taking advantage of the excitement at the beginning, did I have such energy.
The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has only been to one place in Hulun Buir City before, so one of the highlights of this self-driving is Inner Mongolia. It is planned to travel westward along the broad grassland from Ulanqab, but the grassland has not yet "woke up" in April, and spring comes in the north. A little later, what left a deep impression on me was the vast desert, which is another story.
After one night in Ulanqab, the next day we traveled 70 kilometers north to the Ulan Hada Volcanic Group in the Chahar Right Rear Banner.
"League" and "Banner" are the unique administrative regions of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. "League" is equivalent to a prefecture-level city, and "Banner" is equivalent to a county. ", famous for its volcanic grassland landscape, not far from Beijing. Ulanqab is known as "Beijing's back garden", and the Ulan Hada volcano group here is a desolate (grass is not yet green) but fascinating special landscape in the garden. It is a popular scenic spot for self-driving tours around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.
Ulan Hada Volcanic Geopark is located in Ulan Hada Sumu in the northern part of Chayouhou Banner, covering an area of 65.9 square kilometers. There are dozens of sites formed by volcanic eruptions, large and small, distributed on the vast Chahar grassland. The only volcanic grassland scenery belt. Here you can see majestic volcanic cones, spectacular lava flows, beautiful barrier lakes and endless prairie. It is said that after winter snow, the snow-covered volcanoes here are better than Mount Fuji in Japan, and the volcanoes in early spring are scattered in the wilderness. The "Mongolian Yurt" on the
Among the many "yurts", the most famous ones are No. 5 and No. 3 volcanoes.
Volcano No. 5 is called "Guo Daduxi" in Mongolian. It is the most complete volcano in the geological park. It is said in the local legend that it is the alchemy furnace of the Taishang Laojun. In the battle of Honggertu in 1936, the Mongolian anti-Japanese troops circled the army and horses into the volcanic cone, avoiding the bombing of Japanese planes, and the volcano made great contributions to the victory of the battle. Nowadays, many couples choose to take wedding photos here, hoping that their love will last forever through the eternal implication of the volcano that has remained unchanged for thousands of years.
Volcano No. 3 is called "Jigong Duxi" in Mongolian, and its shape is similar to Mount Fuji in Japan, so tourists often call it "Little Mount Fuji". Visitors can climb up the mountain pass and look down at the cone-shaped structure inside the volcano. The bottom diameter of this volcanic cone is about 700 meters, the height is about 80 meters, and the diameter of the eruption is about 180 meters.
Among the molten debris accumulated around Volcano No. 3, there is a solitary red telephone booth, which looks like the only remaining human civilization after the apocalypse. Although it is bright, it is really small and fragile like duckweed in the flood compared with the endless ash around it. In fact, compared with the vast universe, human civilization is a drop in the ocean in terms of space and time. The earth is far less eye-catching than this red telephone booth on the spiral arm of the galaxy, not to mention the civilization that only occupies one-half millionth of the earth's time, the most unbridled ambition, the most magnificent ambition, the most brilliant achievement, and the most poignant death in human history. Love, the deepest hatred...under this scale, they are nothing but meteors and lightning, fleeting clouds.
A group of ants evolved from the initial protoplasm at a certain node, and began to forage, defend against enemies, mate, and reproduce day after day... This went on and on for hundreds of millions of years, and at another node, they died in an ecological catastrophe. Extinction, if human beings have not recorded their struggles, how can they prove their existence?
A group of human beings also evolved from the initial protoplasm at a certain node, and began to forage, defend against enemies, mate, and reproduce day after day... so it went on and on for hundreds of millions of years, and there is a high probability at another node. Who will record the struggle of human beings? How to prove the existence of human beings?
In the 4.6 billion-year-old earth, there may have been "human beings" in the past. In the 13.8 billion-year universe, civilization may have been born on a certain planet. If there is, then there must be heroes as talented and bold as Li Shimin and unswerving walkers like Tang Sanzang. ; Even if there is, what is the difference between them and two busy ants? They may not be as good as ants - ants are remembered by "high-dimensional creatures", they are just fantasy like ghosts in our minds. In another 4.6 billion years, maybe some "Homo sapiens" in another galaxy far, far away will think so too—human beings are that ghostly fantasy to them.
Thinking of this, I suddenly had a new understanding of why human beings need religion and philosophy other than fighting pain: After desire, what is the meaning of existence?
This may be a question that will always accompany human civilization. The temporary answer I found at this stage is "Life Zen", which is advocated by a branch of Zen Buddhism: the current life itself is meaning, eating is meaning, sweeping the floor is meaning, and walking is meaning. Meaning, cranky thinking is also meaning...the so-called "the mind observes the heart, and the mind observes the mind".
So I give myself time to think wildly, and I can calmly put away my thoughts and continue on the road...
Next stop - Hohhot!
