Liezi (Lie Yukou) worshiped Huqiuzi as his teacher, and became close friends with the blind man Bohun, and tried his best to learn from them how to practice Taoism. He learned to fly with the wind in the sky, and he returned home happily, causing a sensation for a while.
A student surnamed Yin really wanted to learn from Liezi how to fly against the wind, so he lived in Liezi's house and did various things seriously. He asked Liezi several times for advice and asked to learn special skills, but Liezi was noncommittal, and he went home disappointed.
A few months later, the student surnamed Yin came to visit Liezi again and reviewed his haste and recklessness. Aiming at his eagerness to seek unique skills, Liezi told him how he practiced Taoism.
Liezi said: "After I worshiped Huqiuzi as my teacher, after three years of cultivating my mind and character, I became afraid to have right and wrong thoughts in my heart, and dared not talk about gains and losses in my mouth. At this time, I won the teacher to look at me more. I continued to practice forgetting myself and forgetting methods. After seven years, I reached the state of following my mind without right or wrong, and speaking casually without gain or loss. Only then did the teacher let me sit in front of him and listen to his lectures.
"Nine years later, no matter what I think in my heart or what I say in my mouth, it will not involve right and wrong. At that time, I only feel that my whole body is bright and the inside and outside are the same. I can use my eyes instead of ears to hear, my ears instead of my nose to smell, and my nose instead of the mouth to speak, I can use my mouth to swallow air, and my human body sense functions lose their distinction. So when my mind is concentrated, I suddenly feel my body dissipate, my flesh and bones melt, and I float up with the wind unconsciously, suddenly east and west, and finally I can't tell if the wind rides me, or I ride the wind (the same realm as the void)."
Liezi earnestly taught his disciples: "When you no longer have interests, gains and losses, when there is no self in the heart, and there is no way to be persistent in your heart, the energy of life can be integrated with the energy of nature and become a part of nature. Then you are the mountain, the sea, and the nature. In the void, you can naturally walk against the wind."
- Liezi Walking Against the Wind
The founder of the Shang Dynasty, Cheng Tang, was a benevolent and virtuous monarch, who handled things with the heart of heaven and the will of the people.
One day when Cheng Tang was out in the wild, he saw hunters spreading their hunting nets in four directions, and the hunters prayed to the sky: "Any beasts that descend from the sky, appear from the ground, or come from all directions, throw them into my nets."
Cheng Tang is a monarch who is kind to the people and loves things. Seeing this scene, he couldn't bear it, but it was inconvenient to stop the hunters from hunting. He went forward himself, removed three sides of the hunting net, leaving only one side, and changed the prayer to: "Whoever goes to the left, flee to the left, and whoever goes to the right, flee to the right, and whoever flies up, Flee upwards quickly, and those who want to go downwards, flee downwards quickly. Only those who do not want to live will fall into my net."
The hunters was greatly moved, and they obeyed Cheng Tang's instruction from now on. Cheng Tang saw that the people had been hunting for a long time, and it was difficult to get rid of it. Therefore, he advocated that the nets should be removed from three sides, and only one should be kept. In this way, he educates the world, not to kill things, so as to reduce crimes, with good intentions, he is indeed a great sage who benevolent people and love things.
In the past, the Buddha lived in a place called "Music Sound" in the country of Vijero (or translated as "Duosheluo Country"). At that time, there were 800 monks and bodhisattvas with the Buddha. One day, a poor old woman came to visit the Buddha. She bowed respectfully to the Buddha's feet and asked the Buddha for his mercy.
The Buddha mercifully replied: "Okay! You can ask any questions you have." The old woman asked: "World Honored One! May I ask where birth comes from and where does it go? Where does old age come from and where does it go? Where does illness come from and where does it go? Where does death come from, where does it go? Where do forms, feelings, thoughts, formations, and consciousness come from, and where do they go? Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, where do they come from and where do they go? Where do the earth, water, fire, and wind come from, and where do they go?"
The Buddha praised the old woman: "Goodness!" Then he replied: "There is no place life comes from, and there is no place for it to go; old age, sickness, death, form, feeling, thought, formation, consciousness, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, Mind, earth, water, fire, wind... everything has no origin and nowhere to go. It is like two pieces of wood rubbing against each other to make fire, and the fire ignites the wood; when the wood is consumed, the fire goes out. "
The Buddha asked the old woman: "So, where does the fire come from and where does it go?" The old woman replied: "When the causes and conditions converge, the fire will arise; if the causes and conditions separate, the fire will be extinguished."
The Buddha asked the old woman: "So, where does the fire come from and where does it go?" The old woman replied: "When the causes and conditions converge, the fire will arise; if the causes and conditions separate, the fire will be extinguished."
The Buddha nodded and said: "The same is true for all dharmas, which is formed by the combination of causes and conditions, which will disappear when the causes and conditions are separated, and there will be nowhere to come from, and there will be nowhere to go. What the eye can see and can distinguish colors is consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is the cause of form, both are formed by the aggregation of causes and conditions, and both will disappear when the causes and conditions is separated. There is no eternal existence of the self, and both are empty. For example, the reason why a drum can make a sound is the combination of many conditions. A drum has a drum frame and a drum surface. The sound can only be made by someone holding a drum stick and hitting the drum surface. The sound of a drum does not come from the frame, the head, the sticks, or the hands. Sound itself has no eternal entity, its nature is empty.
The same is true for all dharmas. When karma and condition meet, they will come into being, and if karma and condition cannot be reconciled, they will disappear. There is no origin and nowhere to go. For example, a painter prepares the drawing board first, mixes the paints, then begins to color on the drawing board, and finally completes a painting. This painting is not born from the drawing board, nor is it born from the artist's hand, but the painting completed by the artist using the drawing board, paint, and his own hands, which is produced by the aggregation of causes and conditions. The same is true of life and death, the law of karma, no matter whether you fall into hell because of committing a crime, or reborn in heaven because of cultivating blessings, there is no self-body that exists eternally, which is emptiness. As long as you understand the principle of attaining emptiness, you will not cling to the illusory phenomena in the world as permanent and real. "After hearing the Buddha's discourse, the old woman suddenly understood and gained the clarity of her Dharma eyes.
The Buddha's servant, Ananda, asked the Buddha: "What is the cause and condition of this old woman, who can be enlightened by listening to the Buddha's discourse?" The Buddha told Ananda: "This old woman is my previous life mother when I vowed to learn the Dharma."
Ananda asked the Buddha again: "Then why is this old woman so poor and difficult in this life?" The Buddha said: "In the past when Kakusandha Buddha was in the world, I wanted to become a monk and practice. At that time, my mother refused to let me become a monk because of her love for me. I was full of worries and couldn't eat all day. Because she hindered me from studying Buddhism, she was reborn in poverty in five hundred lives. However, after her lifespan in this life is over, she will be reborn in the pure land of Amitabha Buddha. After six billion eight hundred million kalpas, she will achieve Buddhahood. Her Buddha name is Bogan, the name of the country is Huahua, and the people in that land have plenty of food and clothing, just like the heaven of Taoli, and the life span of the people is as long as one kalpa.”
After the Buddha spoke this sutra, the old woman, Venerable Ananda, and all the Bodhisattvas, monks, ghosts, gods, dragons, asuras, etc. were all overjoyed and left after paying their respects.
The allusion is taken from: "Buddha Tells the Old Woman Sutra"
Take nothing in the world. There is nothing to take, so there is no attachment. There is no attachment, so you can realize Nirvana by yourself. - "Saṃyukta Āgama"
Charities such as orphanages and nursing homes are found almost everywhere. However, there is a place in Cangzhou that specially adopts the blind, called "Nursing the Blind". Unlike other charities, it is not sponsored by the government.
Blind man Liu Junrui said that there used to be an alternate official named Chen, when he passed by Cangzhou, the toll money he had with him had been exhausted. He has no relatives here, and he has no way to borrow money. After thinking about it, he has no way to advance or retreat, and he wants to throw himself into the river to die. At this time, a blind man took pity on him and poured out his money to support the alternate official. Because of this, Chen was able to enter Beijing and get an official position, and was later recommended as the governor of a state.
After Chen became an official, he couldn't forget the blind man who sponsored him, so he personally brought a few hundred taels of silver, trying to emulate Han Xin's act of repaying his adoptive mother. But he searched everywhere, but never found the blind man, and no one even knew the blind man's last name. Therefore, he donated the funds and built this "Nursing the Blind" in Cangzhou to adopt the lonely and helpless blind people.
The blind man who was generous and righteous, and this Chen who always repays his kindness, can be called people with old-fashioned and warm-hearted hearts. Liu Junrui also said that all the blind people set aside a room in the "Nursing the Blind" as a place to burn incense and worship Chen's spiritual throne in the morning and evening. I said, "Beside Mr. Chen's tablet, that blind man should also set a tablet." Liu Junrui was very disturbed, and said, "How dare a blind man sit on an equal footing with a state official?" I said, "If The sacrifice is only based on the official title, of course the blind man is not qualified to live here. But if the sacrifice is done with "righteousness", then the blind man's chivalrous heart to help others is equal to Chen's act of repaying kindness, so why not set up a memorial tablet there?"
This incident happened during the reign of Kangxi, and when Liu Junrui told me about it, it was already between Yihai (1755) and Bingzi (1756) years of Qianlong. At that time, Liu Junrui could still name many blind people in the "Nursing the Blind". It has been more than thirty years now, and I don't know if the "Nursing the Blind" has survived.
- Ji Xiaolan
In 2014, a woman came to send money. AUD $200,000 was remitted back to China. At that time, large amounts of funds were basically remitted from China to Australia, and I had never seen such a large amount of money returned to China. So I asked her why she wanted to send it back to China. She said she was going to send the money to her dad. I was very moved when I heard it. But she also said that the money originally belonged to her father. Not long after her father immigrated, he planted vegetables in the yard of her house, and then he defecated everywhere as fertilizer. She couldn't bear it, so she asked her father to return to China, and this time, she also sent her father's money back. I was speechless at the time. Eight years later, this event is still fresh in my memory. This incident can cause many topics, such as how to get along with parents, filial piety, how to behave, and even fate, cause and effect. These are not easy to talk about, and there is no need to talk about them. Everyone sees it differently. There is another thing about remittances. There is roughly a data. There are about 5,000 remittances from mainland China to Australia through Chinese banks every day, most of which are between AUD $3000 and AUD $20000 Australian dollars. The remittance post is the funniest: GoodGoodStudyDayDayUp comes up often. A lot of remittances are the living expenses that parents give to their children studying abroad. In contrast, according to the statistics of World Bank's Migration and Development Brief, in 2021, on average, every day, the amount of remittances remitted by Indian immigrants from Australia to India through various channels is about AUD 30 million, which is about USD $7.8B per year, and these are only 10% of the total remittances sent by Indian immigrants to India globally. One in and one out, the direction is opposite.