Liang Shuming was a relatively active and influential intellectual in China in the 20th century. His experience and achievements were quite extraordinary: he was a secretary of the Ministry of Justice of the Beiyang Government, a reporter, attended the forum of Peking University, and initiated the rural construction movement.People call him the last Confucianism in China.However, letting him say that these are not worth mentioning, and he admitted that he was a "monk who does not wear a cassock."At the age of 94, he still admitted that he was a Buddhist, so he was called "the last time he was hiding in the sea of people."
“I am a Buddhist and have never told anyone that I am afraid of laughing at you.A person has this life, the next life, and the previous life.I was a monk and a Zen monk in my previous life!” In 1987, when the Chinese Buddhist Culture Institute was established, 94-year-old Liang Shuming was the first to make the above speech.Because he has been vegetarian for many years and does not grow hair, he is called "a monk who does not wear a cassock."
Suicide or become a monk?
The 19th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1893)9On the 9th of the month, a thin baby boy from a family in Beijing was born. He was Liang Shuming, who later became famous in the literary world.Liang Ji, the father who was the official position of the Secretariat of the Cabinet at that time, named his child Huanding, whose courtesy name was Shouming, which means Guangda Dingxin and healthy longevity.Liang Shuming was a scholar at the age of five, but he could not wear pants at the age of six. He was thin and sick and stupid. Until he was nine years old, he gradually woke up from his confusion under the inspiration of his father.He went through two private schools and was admitted to Shunren Middle School at the age of twelve.
It is Liang Shuming's nature to be compassionate to the world. He was walking idle on the streets of Beijing and saw an old white-haired man pulling a rickshaw. He barely pulled forward and couldn't run. However, the person riding the car urged him to leave quickly. He fell down as soon as he was busy, his white beard was covered with blood.This incident greatly stimulated Liang Shuming, and he burst into tears at that time.From then on, Liang Shuming never took a rickshaw for life.
Since he became sensible, he has been constantly thinking and exploring two issues: one is China and the other is life.These two questions accompanied him through more than eighty years.At the age of fourteen or fifteen, I began to be confused by life problems.When she saw that the female worker at home cooked and washed clothes every day and it was very hard, she couldn't help asking her if she had worked hard. The female worker said she was used to it.She didn't look bitter and often had a smile on her face.As for him, his family is still well-off and he is the youngest son in the family. He is loved by his parents. He doesn't seem to be dissatisfied with anything, but he is often very depressed inside.He was as sad as Prince Sakyamuni, and finally concluded that the suffering and happiness of life are not in the external environment, but in himself. The root of it lies in his own desires. If you are satisfied, you will be happy. If you are not satisfied, you will be suffering. This desire is endless.
Why do humans search like this? Think hard and choose Buddhist scriptures to seek answers, which becomes the inevitable result.Liang Shuming often goes to Liulichang Cultural Street in Beijing to read and buy wood-carved Buddhist scriptures.When I read the phrase "It's rare to find a human body" in the Buddhist scriptures, I couldn't help but burst into tears.Indeed, "time is important", a person's life is very short, "It is not easy for a person to get the opportunity of life, and he cannot be ashamed of the gift of nature."What the Buddhist scriptures say is so surprisingly similar to what you think, and the answers to your own confusion are given in the Buddhist scriptures.From then on, he was unstoppable. He learned while learning, gradually becoming more interested in Buddhism.In this regard, he once had the urge to become a monk.
When she was eighteen years old, her mother was seriously ill. She hoped that Liang Shuming would get engaged to a classmate of her sister, but Liang Shuming, who had long been the idea of becoming a monk, replied, "I will never get married in my life!" The mother was very angry when she heard this.The more enlightened father persuaded him: "This child is optimistic and he will always walk the right path."In this way, Liang Shuming refused his mother's engagement and did not get married until eleven years later.The next year, in June 1912, his mother died after a long-term illness. Since then, Liang Shuming has been determined to eat vegetarian food and will never change his life.
1916In 2019, while serving as secretary in the Cabinet Ministry of Justice, he studied Buddhism for three years.The story of Sakyamuni becoming a monk made him feel intimate, and he wanted to become a monk.Nanyue Hengshan is the spiritual pure land he yearns for. He wants to go to Nanyue Hengshan to retire and fulfill his past wish.So he quit his job as secretary, went south to Jiangsu and Hangzhou, and then to Hunan.The scene of defeated soldiers roaming, robbery, and villagers were killed without help along the way, which made Liang Shuming very sad;The war was tragic, and his conscience could not bear to give up all living beings, so he gave up the idea of becoming a monk.After returning to Beijing, he wrote an article titled "If our Cao does not come out, what is the people?", talking about "to show that we should not become a monk, but to seek welfare for society." He called on all sectors of society to organize the National Military Association to jointly stop the civil war.He printed thousands of copies at his own expense and distributed them to people from all walks of life, causing a great sensation in the cultural circle.
University professor, what do you know?
l917 In 2019, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei, he went to Peking University to teach and teach Indian philosophy.He set Buddhist doctrines in a noble hall and pioneered the study of Buddhism as a philosopher.He compiled the four lecture notes of the summary, ontology, epistemology and worldly theories of India into the publication of the "Introduction to Indian Philosophy".Later, "The Meaning of Consciousness-Only" was compiled to promote Buddhism.Peking University is a place where senior intellectuals gather. According to Liang Shuming, this is easy to cause a competitive spirit of fame and competition, which is very contradictory to his idea of becoming a monk.He likes to get close to monks and make friends with them.
At this time, something that affected him for the rest of his life happened, and his father Liang Ji committed suicide by throwing himself into the water.On January 8, 1918, Liang Ji sank himself in Jingye Lake in Jishuitan. In his suicide note, he wrote: "Liang Ji's death was a death for the Qing Dynasty... and a death for the Qing Dynasty... not based on the Qing Dynasty, but on what he learned in childhood.For thousands of years, the poems and rituals of the ancestors of our country are the general principles of the poems and rituals of our ancestors, fathers and mothers, and what we heard in our childhood is to be responsible for the world.This theory is deeply imprinted in my mind, and it is based on this theory."Liang Ji's suicide caused a great shock at the time, and the characters from both the old and the new expressed great respect for his dedication to his moral ideals.The cause of his death was really disappointed with the various changes in the early years of the Republic of China, and wanted to use his death to arouse the attention of healing: "This is why I overestimate myself and know that the general situation is difficult to save, and donate this to be the first line of national character.”
Liang Shuming recalled in an article: "I can hardly think of a positive person who can help me.I think the one that is most helpful to me is probably the father."My father is a person with a firm nature, not a person with great talent every day.He has no talent for knowledge, and he is not good at doing things."He is quite smart, but he is rarely seen in acting.The most unattainable thing about him is that his interests are beyond vulgarity and he is unwilling to follow the vulgarity, but he has a heart-warming heart and a chivalrous body."This "heart-hearted and chivalrous" was inherited and carried forward by Liang Shuming. Liang Shuming sighed: "My initial thoughts and being a human being were influenced by my father, and I was just like this.”
1924At the turn of spring and summer 2008, he lived in a dilapidated temple called Jile Temple in Wansheng Garden, Beijing for recovery due to severe insomnia.There is an old monk named Master Shengyuan living in the temple.Liang Shuming felt familiar when he saw him.Master Shengyuan lives in a two-sided room, and he lives in a northern room near the hall.He ate porridge like the old monk every day, and after eating, he went for a walk, talking about Buddhist knowledge such as karma, inspiration, and suffering, and was very close to him.Once, when Liang Shuming talked about teaching Indian philosophy at Peking University, including Buddhism, the old monk suddenly criticized him seriously and said, "Don't talk nonsense, what do you know?" The old monk's straightforwardness made him admire him, and he hurriedly nodded and said yes.Liang Shuming lived in Jile Temple for more than 40 days and had a deep relationship with the old master.When he learned that he was still in meditation after he was enlightened, he even called him an amazing Zen monk.Liang later said to people: "I admire never seen another person in my life."In the first year, Liang Shuming resigned from the Peking University Chairperson and planned to become a monk again.
Birth to save the life of the world
Later, he studied Confucianism and found that Buddhism and Confucianism had "connection". The reason why they were connected was that they both recognized people, so they decided to put aside the idea of Buddhist life.He felt that the value of life is that it is "sensitivity and unobstructed", and both oppose "stagnation but not alive".Liang Shuming specifically quoted Mr. Ma Yifu's words that "Confucianism, Buddhism and other things are idle names, and human nature is the same as human beings" to confirm his own point of view.
In Liang Shuming's view, a real monk became a monk because of a major event of life and death that touched his heart and liver and touched his life: I felt very pitiful when I saw sentient beings sinking into the sea of life and death, so I decided to transcend life and death and resolve life and death.Although he did not become a monk, he had to use the spirit of saving the world in Buddhism and devote his life to exploring the path of self-rescue of the Chinese nation.With the belief that "no self is the greatest, and there is no limit to one's roots", he abandoned everything and made great progress.He really worked hard to do it. He wanted to be the savior. The starting point of all his words and deeds is to be compassionate to all sentient beings and save them all;The ambition he pursued throughout his life was not to be a vulgar person, but to be a more vulgar person.He left his friends, abandoned his relatives, gave up his comfortable urban life, and came to the backward and poor countryside, fulfilling his wish of "I have endless life and my heart will fill the sea and move mountains" and took the poor countryside of Henan and Shandong as his experimental fields to carry out a vigorous rural construction movement.In 1931, he founded the Shandong Zouping Research Institute with a Buddhist heart. His ideal was to educate the whole people, create new cultures, and transform ideas.Save people first.Choosing a great aspiration, focusing on one place, not daring to rush around, and not thinking about life and death even though you enter, this is the universal sentiment of a true Buddhist.
After Mr. Liang read all his vicissitudes and honors, he l988 On June 22, 2019, he completed his ninety-five years of life.On his dying day, he said, "I want to rest, I want to be quiet!"
The Buddha's name Guanyin awakens one's heart.
That is, the mind is Buddha, that is, the mind, Buddha and sentient beings are not very different.
The Buddha's name Guanyin awakens one's heart.
Don't be confused when you are so kind, and you can stay as your master...
We seem to hear Mr. Liang chanting this poem gently written on " ***”The poems that were circulated after the house was confiscated left gently and rested quietly forever.
