Liao Zhai Zi is silent

Chapter 31

"Qingming prayer ceremony."

Zhao Zhong believes: "Qingming is approaching, and at the beginning of late spring, I want to do the practice of meditation.
In particular, on the Ching Ming Festival, this ceremony of saving lives and repaying debts will be opened, with the purpose of transferring money for the majority of believers, relieving disasters and eliminating disasters, and balancing yin and yang. "

"I'm afraid this kind of puja will require a lot of people. Can the two of us be busy?" Zhao Zhongxin said, "My master would hold this puja before, but it was all paid by the surrounding landlords and people."

"That's right, shouldn't the country gentry and landlords take the initiative to come to the door for such a big event?" Lin Zhuming asked.

"Now we're all going to Qingliang Temple. Qingliang Temple has a huge lineup, and there are seven towers to save lives! There are fifty or sixty monks."

"Is there any puja in Qingliang Temple this year?" Lin Zhuming stopped writing.

"In previous years, there was a yoga flame ceremony."

The mouth of the flame is a Dharma meeting that both Buddhism and Taoism have.

Taoism is the ritual of giving food in iron cans of Sazu.But it is a very big Dharma conference, it will take seven days, and it is usually held jointly by various forests, and it can only be completed by joint talents.

For the Buddhist school, the time is shorter, and the number of people required is not so many. It starts at dusk and ends at about midnight, and generally 14 people can complete the puja.

It is only a joke that Lin Zhuming wants to organize this ceremony by himself.

"Then we have to think of a way. If we really can't beat them, we will join them."

"Brother Lin, are you going to become a monk? Then what should I do?"

Lin Zhuming laughed and said: "Just kidding, your master has made good friends with some gentry and landlords before, let's go to get a wave of praise first, and if you are talking about Rich Zhou, you can go there again."

"But hasn't his family's zombies been dealt with? I'm afraid that with the character of rich man Zhou, if he can find a way to get money, it will really kill him."

"His yin house is peaceful, but the yang house is not peaceful. There is a fox haunting him."

Lin Zhuming said, "It happens that we are here to make a rope to bind the demon."

"Vixen? Why didn't I see it? Male and female? Are you pretty? How's your figure? Where did you see it?"

Zhao Zhongxin asked six consecutive questions.

Yeah!Your master also said that you are loyal and honest, so it turns out that you are this kind of loyal and honest.

Lin Zhuming's burning gaze made him shy, but he still asked, "Senior brother Lin, just tell me!"

"The male fox is quite handsome."

"Ah? Brother Lin, why didn't you slay the demon!" Zhao Zhongxin asked.

Lin Zhuming felt powerless to complain.

So he said, "Go find me a piece of hemp rope."

"Why are you looking for hemp rope?" Zhao Zhongxin asked: "I heard that the demon-binding ropes in the storybook are all made of dragon tendons, like the belt of the Taishang Laojun in Journey to the West."

"You also know it's a novel, a storybook." Lin Zhuming said: "I need the old hemp rope that has been worn for ten years on the potter's wheel, or the old hemp rope that has been held by the cow's hand for more than ten years, or the old hemp rope used in the temple. The straw rope for "building an altar" also takes more than two or three years."

Lin Zhuming explained: "When the time comes to recite the mantra, and the flower talisman will be consecrated, it will be the rope to bind the demon. Now it is borrowing the original power of its root."

"Like the hemp rope on the pulley, it is for people to get water from the well, and it is self-winding and comfortable, and it has its own merits."

"Like the rope leading an ox, take its nature of "holding". Once the ox rope is pulled, the ox understands the owner's mind, and pulling the plow to plow the field has its own meaning of imprisonment."

"As for the straw ropes in the temple, they are used to enclose the pure land barrier. Nowadays, Japanese Shintoism also uses them to ward off evil things."

Lin Zhuming said, "If you use these three ropes as ropes to bind monsters, or make them into whips, you can bind monsters and break them apart."

"So that's the case, then we have such straw ropes in our temple, not to mention a few years, more than ten years!" Zhao Zhongxin led Lin Zhuoming to a big tree in front of the Longevity Palace. The grass rope is knotted, and there are some scattered incense handles beside it.

"This camphor tree was brought from Yuzhang when the temple was built, and it has been around for many years now," said Zhao Zhong.

Lin Zhuo knew about this tree, but when he was picked up by the old Taoist master, there was no such tree, only a stake.

But this tree has a spiritual seat in the temple, called: Ciyou Lingguan.

But here is another story, involving the massacre of the city.

For more than forty days in Nanjing that year, there was a horrific scene of purgatory on earth. In the Taoist temple, the tree had grown to the width of several people's arms.

Camphor wood is not worm-eaten, but before the Japanese invaders massacred the city, the tree was hollow overnight. At the same time, the patriarch got a dream and dreamed of this tree hole.

After the massacre of the city broke out, an elder hid in it with seventeen children and escaped unharmed, including the young Daoist. The old Daoist was born in [-]. This happened in [-] , that is, four years old.

And that elder is the old master's master.

Every time the old master talked about his master, he would follow Lin Zhuming and say, "Your master has regretted it all his life. Why is he the one who is alive? He should have gone to fight with the Japanese invaders, but at that time everyone thought he should stay .”

Lin Zhuming asked at the time: "How can they stay in the tree hole for so long without being found, do they have anything to eat?"

The old Taoist said: "Meditate, your master taught us to meditate at that time, the tree hole is not too big, we are crowded with people, and we only have a few pieces of naan for food."

"When we meditate, we don't feel hungry or thirsty."

"It was rumbling outside, and there were a lot of shells bombarding us, but they just didn't hit us."

"That's it, finally one day, your master said to us: We can go out."

"There is nothing outside, a ruin, full of burnt marks, and corpses that cannot be seen clearly, those kneeling on the ground, hanging from trees, those without clothes, buried in the soil, only their heads exposed outside."

"The worst thing was the ancestral hall at that time. The devils locked everyone inside and burned it all down. It was full of people, all of them."

The old Taoist trembled all over when he told Lin Zhuoming about this matter.

When Lin Zhuming listened, his whole body trembled.

Recalling what the old Taoist said back then, stroking the lines on the tree, I seemed to feel a vigorous vitality and some suffocating despair.

Tears seemed to be coming out.

At this time, the wind blows the leaves, the birds are tired in the forest, Zhao Zhongxin's voice brings Lin Zhuming back to reality.

"Brother Lin, what's the matter with you? Why do you feel so sad when you see this tree?"

Lin Zhuming shook his head: "This tree has been incensed and already alive. This grass rope is its wall. We can't tear it down casually. Let it be here."

"There are cow ropes everywhere. Let's get a new one and exchange it with others."

"Ah? Is this tree alive? Why didn't my master tell me?" Zhao Zhongxin sighed.

(End of this chapter)