Master Yin Guang paid the most attention to cherishing blessings throughout his life.Clothing, food, housing, etc. are all very simple and crude, and they are very beautiful.In the 13th year of the Republic of China (1924), I went to Putuo Mountain and lived for seven days. Every day, from morning to night, I observed all the behaviors of the master in the teacher's room.The teacher eats only one large bowl of porridge every day, and there are no vegetables.The master said: When I first arrived in Putuo, I ate pickled vegetables in the morning. Because people in the north were not used to eating, I changed to eating only white porridge, which has been more than thirty years.After eating, lick the bowl with your tongue until it is extremely clean.Then pour boiling water into the bowl, wash the remaining juice, then rinse the mouth with it, and swallow it immediately, for fear of discarding the remaining rice grains.Up to lunch, one bowl of rice and one bowl of mass dishes.When the teacher eats it, the rice and food are all gone.First lick the bowl with your tongue, then pour boiling water to wash it and rinse your mouth, which is no different from morning eating.The teacher does this by himself, and he is also extremely strict in advocating others.When you see a guest eating, the rice pellets in the bowl will be yelled: How great is your blessing, you are so useless!This is often the case, and I have heard from my friends that I have said.There was also a guest who threw cold tea into the phlegm bucket, and the teacher also advised him.As for food and food, other things that cherish blessings are also similar to this.
The more difficult the environment is for those who practice, the stronger the Tao’s heart is.The old monk often said: Without a cold, how can you get the fragrance of plum blossoms?
At that time, the old monk, who was already 117 years old, had to patrol the construction sites and land reclamation every day, provide personal guidance, and receive people from all walks of life.At six o'clock in the evening, he went to the meditation hall to give lectures. After eight o'clock, he began to read letters from all over the country. Sometimes there were more than a hundred letters a day, and he had to read them one by one.If it is an important letter, he will reply in person;If it is a general letter, if he explains the meaning, we will restore it.Usually, I have to rest around 12 o'clock in the evening, and get up and meditate at 2 o'clock the next day, until I hit the fourth board, that is, about 3:30, before I get up and wash my face.
He doesn't use toothbrush or toothpaste, he just rinses with warm water, then spits it on a towel, washes his eyes first, and then washes his entire face.He said that washing this way can prevent eye diseases and increase vision.After washing his face, he went to the Buddha's house to worship, and then returned to the bed to meditate.At that time, we started to go to the morning hall.After a while, the crowd went to the dining hall to go to the dining hall for a while after hearing the sound of the bang.
At that time, life on the mountain was very hard, there were not many fields developed, and there was very little millet harvested.Because sweet potatoes are coarse and have a lot of harvest, it is the season for eating sweet potatoes starting from July every year until March of the following year.The leaves and branches of sweet potatoes are our side dishes. Sometimes there is not even the roots and leaves of sweet potatoes, so you can only stir-fry salt and add them to porridge.The porridge I ate in the morning every day is just a little rice, mixed with lots of sweet potatoes and cooked together.What about having lunch?Although the masters had a lot of food at that time, they just made some side dishes, and it was already very good to have vegetables.At night, there is no meal or noodles, only cook some sweet potatoes or potatoes, put them in the vegetarian hall, and make some of them yourself if you want to take medicine stones, but few people eat them.
The porridge and dishes eaten by the old monk were cooked from the big dormitory, just like those eaten by the public masters.He never adds one more dish if there is no guest.We still remember his frugal and simple life now.
Yunju Mountain has a very high terrain, with an altitude of more than 1,100 meters.The weather is very cold in winter, as low as minus 17 or 18 degrees Celsius.The sweet potatoes stored in the cellar cannot withstand the cold air, and the skin is black, and it tastes bitter when cooked.
Once, Master Qi Xian and I ate porridge at the old monk's place. After eating the bitter and astringent sweet potato skin, we picked it out and put it on the table.The old monk was silent when he saw it. After eating porridge, he quietly picked up the sweet potato skins and ate them all.When we both saw the scene, we felt ashamed and sad.From then on, I never dared not to eat sweet potato skins again.
Afterwards, we asked him: You are so old, and those sweet potato skins are so bitter!Why can you still eat?The old monk sighed and said to us: This is food!You can only eat, not waste it.
Another time, Mr. Zhang, director of the Religious Affairs Office of Jiangxi Province, came to the mountain to visit the old monk.The old monk added a few dishes himself and invited him to lunch.Director Zhang is always a layperson and does not know how to cherish blessings.While he was eating, several grains of rice fell on the ground, and the old monk didn't say anything when he saw it.After he finished his meal, he bent down and picked up the rice from the ground one by one, put it in his mouth and ate it.This made Director Zhang blush and feel uncomfortable.He repeatedly advised the old monk and said, "Old monk, the rice has fallen on the ground and is dirty and cannot be eaten."The old monk said: It doesn’t matter!These are all food, and no grain can be ruined.The director said again: Your old man’s life needs to be improved!The old monk replied: That's it, I'm already very good.
The old monk is in good health. In the morning, in addition to eating two bowls of porridge, he sometimes eats a little potato.Have two large bowls of rice for lunch.Sometimes I eat a small bowl of noodles or a little porridge at night.I heard from him that he started taking medicine stones at night, which only started after the Yunmen incident. Before that, he had always refused to eat after noon.
His teeth were particularly good. I remember one time, a lay Buddhist gave some fried broad beans up the mountain.When the old monk saw that we were eating, he wanted to eat too.We said: This thing is very hard, can your old man's teeth be good?He didn't say a word, picked up the broad beans and ate them up, and we were surprised.
He is very frugal and cherishes blessings. The straw mat he slept with broken mats, so we asked him to repair it with cloth.Soon after, it broke again in the same place, and there was no way to make up for it.We told him that we wanted to take the straw mat to our permanent residence and exchange it for a new one.At that time, a straw mat was only about two yuan. Unexpectedly, after hearing this, he shouted: What a great blessing!Enjoy a new mat on permanent residence.We didn't dare to speak out anymore.
Whether in winter or summer, he only wore a patched jacket, which was a long gown that he repaired and repaired (Zen and Zi called it a patched jacket).In winter, I just add a cotton coat to it, and in summer, I only wear a single jacket.
The old monk often teaches us: To cultivate wisdom, one must understand the truth, and to cultivate blessings, it is better to cherish blessings.It means that you must understand the truth when practicing wisdom and meditation, and the truth is the way.If you want to practice Zen, but you can't figure it out clearly and you can't understand the principles of Zen, then it will be difficult to use the time.Therefore, the ancients said: There is no difference in practicing, the key is to know the way.I can recognize it on the road, and life and death will stop together.As for cherishing blessings, where can monks have money to cultivate blessings in terms of emotion?In fact, there is no need to cherish blessings, that is, you must cherish all the blessings and causes in life.He often scolds our young generation: You must cherish your blessings!You can encounter Buddhism now and come to me to practice, maybe because you have cultivated some blessings in the past life.But if you do not hesitate to blessings and enjoy all your blessings, you will become a person without blessings.It’s like you made money in business in the past and kept it in the bank.If you no longer work hard to make money, just focus on enjoyment, and spend all your bank savings, then you will have to be in debt if you continue.
Therefore, the old monk has very strict requirements for us.I think our monks are so blessed. In life, they have many times more abundant in clothing, food, housing and transportation than in the past.Therefore, in this blessing, we should pay more attention to cherishing blessings.Those who are blessed will have a better practice.If you do not have blessings, no matter which method you practice, there will be various obstacles.
Master Hongyi is a famous contemporary master of the Vinaya Sect. In his own words, his idea of cherishing blessings is: Even if we have ten thousand blessings, we have to enjoy three points, and we can save the rest for later enjoyment.One year when Master Hongyi gave a lecture to monks at Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen, he advised them to make a great heart and give all sentient beings to enjoy them together with their own blessings. That would be even better.
Master Hongyi believes that even if we have good fortune, we should cherish it and never waste it.Why?In the Dharma-Ending Age, people’s blessings are very meager. If you don’t cherish and enjoy all this very thin blessing, you will suffer great pain. This is what the ancients said that extreme happiness leads to sorrow!When Master Hongyi was a child, he saw his father ask someone to write a big couplet, recording the sentences of Liu Wending Gong of the Qing Dynasty, hanging high on the pillars in the hall.The first couplet is to cherish food and clothing, not to cherish wealth and blessings.His brother often taught him to read this sentence. After he was familiar with it, he would pay great attention to everything he had to dress or eat. Even if he didn't dare to ruin a grain of rice.Master Hongyi's mother also often taught him to be careful at all times and not damage or contaminate the clothes he wore.His mother and brother were afraid that he would not care about food and clothing, and would lose his blessings and die of short life, so he often reminded him like this.
Master Hongyi lost his father at the age of five.He practices writing at the age of seven and writes with a whole piece of paper.His mother saw it and said sternly: Child, you have to know that when your father was alive, he would not have to waste such a large piece of paper, and even a handful of paper would not be thrown away casually!
The family education received by Master Hongyi was deeply imprinted in his mind. Later, when he got older, he did not care about food and clothing for a while.After becoming a monk, he still retained the habit of cherishing food and clothing.The pair of yellow shoes he wore was given to him by a monk who was chanting the seven-day Buddhist sacred Buddhist sacred shoes in Hangzhou in 1920.The quilt he used every night was still what he used before becoming a monk.He has an umbrella that he bought in 1911.If these daily necessities are ragged, please ask someone to sew the sewings with needles and threads to use them as new.Except for the small shirts and trousers he wore and the straw sandals he wore, they had to be changed every five or six years, most of his clothes were made at home or when he first became a monk.
People often give Master Hongyi a good dress or precious items, and he transfers most of them to others.He said: Because I know that I have little blessings, good things do not have the courage to benefit from.Another example is to eat something, only eat some good things when you are sick, otherwise you never dare to buy good things casually.
Gude said: The Tao is high and the dragon is respectful, and the virtue is high and the ghost is respectful.This is true.The old monks not only often come to the hall to teach the public masters, but also set an example by taking practical actions in various life details and educating the public.Seeing the above story of great virtues thrift and cherishing blessings makes us feel extremely ashamed.Therefore, every move, every word and action of a good teacher is a role model for our descendants!
