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The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is the so-called Laba Festival among the people. Since the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Laba Festival has been held to worship the God of Laba. People will get up early in the morning and cook a hot pot of grain porridge mixed with red dates, peanuts, almonds, chestnuts, walnuts and other things.
The porridge is mixed with brown sugar to give it a euphemistic name: Eight-Colored Fragrant Porridge. Several bowls of porridge are served and placed on the patio, millstones or pens for pigs, cows, horses and sheep, to express the intention of celebrating the harvest and welcoming auspiciousness to sacrifice to the god of wax.
But for Buddhists who are good men and women, the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is given another meaning. According to legend, before the Buddha Sakyamuni attained enlightenment, he lived an ascetic life for six years, so that he was weak, exhausted and dying.
Upon seeing this, a shepherd girl cooked a bowl of milk porridge for him to eat. After the Buddha ate it, his strength recovered, so he bathed and changed clothes under a Bodhi tree and became a Buddha. Therefore, this day is regarded as the Buddha's day in the eyes of Buddhists.
The day of enlightenment.
Among the many Buddhist festivals, this one is the most special. During Laba Festival, pilgrims go to incense and pray one after another. They also bring cooked fragrant porridge and offer it on the altar, imitating the shepherdess delivering milk and porridge to express their respect for the Buddha.
The meaning of respect.
Although the people of Yangzhou have experienced previous disasters and have not yet recovered their vitality, and every household is living a tight life, on this day, people who are devout to Buddha still rush to Daming Temple in an endless stream early in the morning.
Burning incense and worshiping the Buddha; there were even ladies from wealthy families who came in a long procession carrying various fruits and animals to offer incense.
The monks of Daming Temple were sweating profusely, and all the temples were overcrowded. Several old monks were busy organizing ceremonies, chanting sutras and setting up scenes. The monks who knew the guests also shuttled back and forth, constantly maintaining order and welcoming pilgrims.
From Chen Shi to the end of Si Shi, the flow of people in Daming Temple never stopped, with no less than a thousand people coming and going. Some pilgrims lingered to beg for meals, listen to eminent monks chant sutras and give blessings, and some pilgrims lingered.
Some wanted to listen to the abbot's sermon in person. All in all, it was noisy. The entire Daming Temple became the most lively place in Yangzhou City that morning.
After that time, the crowd gradually thinned out. People fulfilled their wishes and left one after another with the bronze mirrors and other objects consecrated by the temple. At this time, a group of more than 20 men entered the mountain gate carrying a small black sedan chair.
The sedan stopped outside the mountain gate, opened the curtain, and an old man in black got out of the sedan. He neither burned incense and kowtowed, nor gave alms and listened to scriptures. Even the monk guarding the round door leading to the Zen room saluted him.
He didn't pay attention, but walked to the Zen room in the backyard in a familiar way.
The more than 20 men who came with him did not follow up, but wandered around the temple.
This old man is Feng Laohu. He is considered a person of high status in Daming Temple. He is the disciple of the abbot. He is the uncle and ancestor of many monks. Furthermore, he is the benefactor of Daming Temple and has donated tens of thousands of dollars.
The reconstruction of Manjusri Hall was a great savior in the eyes of the monks in the temple. Half of the monks' food and clothing were provided by this Puji, so the monks ignored his indifference.
No complaints.
Feng Laohu rattled the iron egg in his hand and walked slowly along the path shaded by trees in the backyard to the Zen room. Every time he arrived here, Feng Laohu was in an especially good mood. For some reason, as soon as he entered the backyard of the Zen room,
The noisy voices of people outside and the sound of chanting and ringing bells became ethereal, and my mood suddenly calmed down.
I remember that a few years ago, I came here accidentally and accidentally entered the Zen room in the backyard. I overheard Abbot Shanxiang giving lectures and chanting to the monks in the temple. He was immediately fascinated by what he heard, even though he could not give up the world.
Although he enjoyed the prosperity of the world, the nightmares that haunted him in the middle of the night made him miserable.
The older a person gets, the more they have indelible memories of what they have done in the past, but Feng Jingyao's memories did not make him happy. He had killed so many people in his life, and there were always some bloody scenes.
In the dream, he had trouble sleeping and eating; he also asked the charlatans around him and listened to their opinions and set up an altar to ward off evil spirits, but it didn't work.
Of course Feng Jingyao was not afraid of these, but these memories kept him in an anxious state, obviously very uncomfortable. For him, killing was not a problem. From the day he was expelled from the school, he began to
Using his own hands to smooth away the obstacles in front of him, he
Like, even enjoy this kind of nervous and fearful life. At that time, he would not have nightmares at all. After every obstacle was cleared, he would be rewarded with large sums of money and a higher and higher status. The kind of life on the edge of the cliff.
The feeling of climbing up made him feel extremely excited.
I don't know since when, the road in front of him has become smooth. He has become the Supreme Emperor in Yangzhou. There is nothing he dares not to do, and no one dares to say a word "no" in front of him. Logically speaking,
At this point, he should be comfortable and content, but in fact he is not.
Those bloody memories, those curses and wailing before death made it impossible for him to sleep, so he tried every means to avoid these nightmares. He could torture women all night long, and he could soak in hot springs for several nights.
Shooting stars in the sky, he can ride a precious horse bought for a hundred taels of gold and gallop on the road all night long. In short, as long as he can get rid of the entanglement of those nightmares, he will never tire of doing it.
He knows that he has become a different person in the eyes of people around him, but he doesn't care. As long as he can calm down, he can do anything. Having said that, no matter what weird behavior he, Feng Jingyao, does, it is natural, because
He is the Tiger of Yangzhou, and he is the absolute master of this land.
After eavesdropping on the lecture of the old monk of Daming Temple that day, Feng Laohu was preparing to accept the torment of nightmares as usual that night. Suddenly, he found that he slept until dawn, with a dreamless night and an extremely sweet sleep.
This is something that has never happened in the past few years. People who have trouble sleeping have just realized how happy it is to be able to sleep soundly and dreamlessly all night until dawn. This is not determined by your high status or how much money you have.
Feng Jingyao, who was puzzled, waited till the night of the second day with trepidation. Unfortunately, the old dream came back again, and it was another torturous night. Feng Jingyao thought about the reason, and a disciple next to him reminded him.
"Master, is it because I went to the temple yesterday and burned two sticks of incense, so the Buddha blessed Master and I had a good night's sleep?"
Feng Jingyao was doubtful, so he went to Daming Temple for the second time. This time he took the initiative to donate a large amount of money and asked the old abbot to teach him the scriptures by name. Although he didn't understand much, he actually slept well after returning that night.
"Brother, it seems that you are destined to be a Buddha. Why don't you become a monk and become a monk." When he talked about this matter with the third blind master of Nancheng, the third blind master said jokingly.
The person in the dream is awakened, but it is impossible to become a monk. How can you give up the hundreds of millions of family fortune and reputation accumulated in most of your life? Wouldn't that be a fool? But it is not a bad idea to be a lay disciple, and I am not asking to be reborn after death.
It is bliss, but if you want to have no dreams every night, you will achieve your goal.
But when he excitedly mentioned this matter to Master Shanxiang, Master Shanxiang refused.
"Amitabha, I never accept lay disciples. If the donor is devout to the Buddha, he only needs to offer incense and recite sutras, and there is no need to be a disciple of Lao Mon."
Feng Laohu couldn't do anything about the old monk. He was an outsider and he was a local emperor in Yangzhou City, but no matter how long his hands were, he couldn't control the Buddhist disciples. Depressed, he asked the worldly and sophisticated Blind Third Master for advice, and as expected, the Blind Third Master gave him advice.
He came up with a good idea.
"The Manjusri Hall in the Daming Temple collapsed, and the golden body of the Bodhisattva was exposed and corroded by wind and rain. The court did not allocate funds for repairs, and the private pilgrims and believers did not have so much money to support them. On this condition, I was not afraid that the old monk would not obey.
"
Feng Laohu ran to give it a try, and sure enough, the old monk was a little loose. The second time, Feng Laohu took the blind third master with him and raised the price even higher. Not only did he fund the reconstruction of Manjusri Temple, but he also promised to donate thousands of coins to the temple every year.
The sesame oil money has solved the food and clothing worries of the monks in the temple.
This move really hit Master Shanxiang's weakness. The old monk also carefully sent people down the mountain to inquire about his details. Feng Laohu had already made arrangements. Wherever the monks inquired, there would be his own people there to speak well for him.
, so the transaction was completed, he successfully entered the hall and became a lay disciple of the eminent monk Shanxiang.
Shanxiang did his duty well. Whenever Feng Laohu and Blind Third Master went to the temple, he would drag them to talk about Buddhist scriptures. Although they were not sincere, with the Buddha as their backer, they would naturally put down a big stone, and he himself
It has indeed taken effect on my chronic ailments. Although I still have nightmares from time to time, they are much less common.
Later, although Shanxiang knew Feng Laohu's identity and that he only became his disciple so that he could have a good night's sleep, he was so angry that he chanted the Buddha's name repeatedly. But the deal was done and he couldn't bear to part with the Manjusri Temple that had already started construction, so he could only swallow his anger and continue to be this disciple.
Master.
And Feng Laohu also knew the secret. He could hide his affairs for a while, but not forever. Once the temple was completed, the old monk turned against him and kicked him out of the door. It would be a big shame, so he was not in a hurry.
It took almost two years to build the Manjusri Hall, but it was still not finished. We just wanted to delay the construction, take our time, and try to grasp the old monk's weakness and not let go.
Shanxiang told Su Jin about this last night, and Su Jin must have laughed so hard that he couldn't help but laugh. Buddha is in charge of heaven and earth, but he can't control people's sleep quality. Feng Jingyao can sleep soundly, but this is actually a kind of self-esteem.
It's just a psychological suggestion.
One of the most famous examples of psychological suggestion in later generations is: a death row prisoner was blindfolded and tied up in an empty room. The experimenter cut a knife on his arm and then asked him to listen to the sound of water dripping, telling him that this was his arm.
It was bleeding; with the sound of the drops of water, the condemned prisoner also felt that the blood in his body was decreasing drop by drop, and finally he really died.
Feng Jingyao's psychological suggestion to himself was that if he believed in Buddhism, he would not have nightmares. So this psychological suggestion became inevitable after an accident. His nightmare experience also miraculously occurred after he became Shanxiang's disciple.