Guiyuan Zen Temple
The sky was overcast, as if it was going to rain. My cousin took her father, uncle, sister-in-law, my daughter and my cousin’s daughter to Guiyuan Zen Temple. My cousin said that Guiyuan Temple is known as "the most spiritual temple for praying in the world." I pray that my parents will be healthy and live a long life. I don’t understand Buddha, but I worship him with respect and piety.
Guiyuan Temple is located on Cuiwei Road, Hanyang District, Wuhan City. It is a famous Buddhist Caodong sect temple in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. It is the first of the four major Buddhist jungles in Wuhan (also including Baotong Temple, Xilian Temple, and Zhengjue Temple). The State Council of China is one of the first batch of key temples to carry out religious activities and is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction. It covers an area of 4.67 hectares and has more than 200 palaces.
The outer mountain gate of Guiyuan Temple is a new one, designed in an antique style. Among the three doors of liberation in the Buddhist scriptures, the one in the middle is a fan-shaped empty door, and the left and right are the formless and non-conducting doors respectively. The three doors of this temple open outwards, and the openings symbolize the desire to make good connections and save all sentient beings. The four large characters "Guiyuan Zen Temple" are written on a straight plaque embedded in the wall. The fonts are neat and the writing style is vigorous, giving people a majestic momentum.
My father, uncle and sister-in-law are all over sixty years old and do not need to buy tickets. The two little lolita are no more than 1.2 meters tall. My cousin went to park the car and I went to buy the ticket. The ticket price was ten yuan, so cheap. My father and uncle each bought a bundle of incense and a watch outside the temple, preparing to go into the temple to burn incense and worship Buddha.
Unexpectedly, there was a large round basket placed inside the fan-shaped empty door. When entering for ticket inspection, foreign incense papers were not allowed to be brought, so they were all thrown into the basket, filled with incense and watches. My sister-in-law smiled, the Buddhist pure land is really pure and dust-free! Walking inside, two old ladies about seventy years old, with silver hair and kind eyes, handed out three sticks of incense to people entering the temple.
There is an endless stream of people entering the temple, silent, with suspicious expressions and calm expressions. We all followed the crowd, raised incense and knelt down, chanted words, and were pious and holy.
Guiyuan Temple consists of three distinctive courtyards: the North Courtyard, the Middle Courtyard and the South Courtyard. We followed the tour guide from north to south. Buddhism is very particular about not turning back.
In the north courtyard there is the Sutra Collection Pavilion and the Cuiwei Pavilion. The temple has towering ancient trees, luxuriant flowers and trees, clear springs and green water, and winding paths leading to secluded areas. It is known as "the best place in Western Han Dynasty".
The hall inside the Sutra Pavilion is high and broad, and in the center is a white jade statue of Sakyamuni Buddha. It was presented to Guiyuan Zen Temple in August 1935 by the disciples of the Three Treasures of Burma Buddhism. It weighs about 2 tons.
The first floor of the Sutra Pavilion is an exhibition room, displaying stone carvings from the Northern Wei Dynasty, Guanyin from the Tang Dynasty and other Buddhist statues from past dynasties. You cannot go in to visit or worship. The second floor houses more than 7,000 volumes of Buddhist classics, including scriptures and Bay-leaf Sutras engraved in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka and other countries. The abbot is Master Longyin. The tour guide focused on the couplets at the door of the Tibetan Scripture Pavilion:
The first couplet: Once you see it, you do it, then you put it down. What’s more?
The second couplet: Wisdom is born from enlightenment and freedom is born. Life or no life.
The tour guide said that it is used for punctuation and sentence segmentation. Each one has different meanings, and there are many ways to say it. For example, the first couplet: Do it when you see it, let it go when you do it, what is the end of it? The second couplet: Wisdom is born from awareness, awareness is born from freedom, whether it is birth or non-birth.
Whatever you want to do, as soon as you think of it, start doing it immediately without waiting or hesitating. Once the thing is done, the thoughts will subside and you can put it down and no longer worry about it. The "Heart Sutra" says, "The heart has no worries. There are no worries. There is no fear. Stay away from upside-down dreams. The ultimate Nirvana." Nothing better than this.
Wisdom comes from understanding and knowledge, and knowledge comes from the desire to know. Generally speaking, the core of the first line is "letting go" and the core of the second line is "freedom". The great wisdom of life lies in "letting go and being at ease." Live free and easy, open-minded, free and happy.
Listening to you is better than ten years of reading! Listening to the tour guide's meticulous explanation, the Buddhist door of the soul opens leisurely, and the Zen thoughts are like a gurgling spring, beating the notes of the soul, like waking up from a dream. Let go and you will feel free. Let go of all grudges and grudges, and cherish the peace you have now. This is the greatest happiness!
Further north is the Three Holy Temples, which mainly worship the "Three Saints of the West". If you have an elderly person at home, you can kneel down and pray for them. My cousin and I happened to compose the album together, praying for the old man's safety and longevity.
Walking from the north to the middle, we came to the Main Hall. It started to rain heavily outside. The tour guide said that when it rains, the Bodhisattva appears to save all living beings and bless the world.
The Main Hall is the main hall of the temple, where monks in the temple hold morning and evening classes. In the middle of the hall is a seated statue of Sakyamuni, flanked by his disciples Ananda and Kassapa on both sides, both of which are sculptures of the Buddha. The four large characters "Mainxiong Hall" on the banner were written by Feng Jiahao, a great calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty. This group of large-scale sculptures is 6 meters high, 4 meters wide, and has an inclination angle of 30 degrees. It is made of silk, brown linen and other raw materials. On the walls on both sides of the main hall, there are stone carvings of the Eighteen Arhats, which are lifelike and as powerful as a tiger.
Behind the statue of Sakyamuni is a sculpture group with the island Guanyin as the center, so it is called "South China Sea Guanyin". The sculpture scene is magnificent. The 24 statues behind Guanyin represent the 24 heavens. The gods are soaring in the sky, majestic and brave, looking down at the common people with their golden light. I thanked Guanyin Bodhisattva for giving me a pair of children and a happy family. I knelt down to express my gratitude and invested ten yuan in it.
Going forward is the Wei Tuo Hall in the middle courtyard. On the back of Weituo Hall, there are four big characters "Return to the shore" written by Master Changming.
In the word "shore", the word "mountain" is not at the top, but is placed to one side. This Zen meaning is that practitioners should let go of the burden in their hearts and cannot hold the "mountain" in their hearts. There is another place in Wei Tuo Hall. Master Changming's inscription is located above the Maitreya Buddha statue on the front, which reads "Everyone is happy". One horizontal line in the character "大" is particularly thick in the middle. If this horizontal line is removed, it becomes the character "人". It is like the big belly of Maitreya Buddha; the two "mouths" of the word "xi" are not completely sealed, which means "the smile is always open", which is in line with the couplets on both sides of the Buddha statue that read "magnanimity can tolerate the difficulties in the world" There are two lines of words in the words "Compassion always smiles at the ridiculous people in the world." The sacred place of the Buddhist temple is filled with pearls, full of enlightenment and wisdom in life.
Outside the gate of Wei Tuo Hall is the Life Release Pond. The life-release pool is 15.6 meters wide and 25 meters long. It is composed of 64 stone pillars and 64 stone carved panels to form the railings. A stone lion is carved on each stone pillar. There are four characters "Adi Dachi" in the four corners of the pool, each of which is nearly one meter square. There are white water-spraying lotus flowers in the north and south of the pool, and the petals are covered with "divine turtles" who are devoted to cultivation. In the grass-green water, there are countless red goldfish swimming. The fish and the turtle keep each other company, whispering, meditating and enlightening. The railings were crowded with tourists, staring curiously at the water. Which one is your own soul that is being transcended?
The Arhat Hall in the south courtyard enshrines 500 Arhat statues made by plastic removal technology. Legend has it that it was made by the Wang family and his son in Huangpi using the hollow sculpture method. They mixed linen, Gebu, raw lacquer and Guanyin soil into materials, and pasted the molded clay body layer by layer. After drying, water was added to melt the mud, and the muddy water drained away. , the hollow Arhat is made. After drying, the wooden block is sealed, and then painted with raw lacquer, gold foil, and tung oil or lacquer to maintain the luster. The body is light and strong, with different shapes, forming a "field"-shaped layout.
People like to use the method of "counting Arhats" to predict the misfortunes and blessings within a year. Select an Arhat at random, and then count down until the number is equal to your own age. See what the Arhat looks like, and go to the front to find a Zen master to decipher the "code of life."
To the south is Tuashi Pavilion. After walking around with the tour guide, there were no souvenirs to buy. Complete appreciation of Guiyuan Zen Temple.
Why is it called Guiyuan Temple? The master replied, "'Yuan' is the beginning of the number, the ultimate of Tao, and the sum total of things. 'Guiyuan' means returning to the truth, transformation, and origin, and has the same meaning as 'nirvana'. 'Yuan' is the perfection of all merits. 'Ji' is When all worries are gone, returning to the original state means attaining enlightenment and becoming a Buddha."
Oh! It was as if Ren Du's blood had been opened and he suddenly realized it. We more or less understood the Zen meaning of Guiyuan Zen Temple. Our trip was worthwhile and we came back with a fruitful experience. It is true that "the mountains are not high, if there are immortals, they will be spiritual; if the water is not deep, if there are dragons, they will be able to travel".
If you have Buddha in your heart, you will be blessed everywhere!