Traditions of Liangzhou: seeking rain

There are so many strange phenomena in Liangzhou that most people in Liangzhou have seen them all. However, when I write these things in my books, others treat them as stories. In fact, these are things that really happened. For example, the details of seeking rain in the Desert Ritual, written more than ten years ago, a real thing happened, I am one of the witnesses.

In 1995, Liangzhou had a severe drought that lasted for several months, and even the Yellow River broke its flow, which I wrote about in The Ritual of the Desert. The Yongfeng Township in the north of the city then invited Taoist priests to beg for rain. On that day, I happened to be bicycling home and passed by the site of the rain-making ceremony, so I wanted to see how the people made the request. I wanted to see if the traditional method could really bring rain. When I got there, the ceremony had already begun. The Taoists lit incense, recited sutras, and struck their instruments, and the rituals were exactly the ones I had known for a long time, but I couldn't hear the contents of the mantra, and I didn't know whether the mantra was the same or not. After watching the ceremony, I rode my bike home, and as a result, it really did rain halfway. It would be a bit too much of a coincidence to say that it was just a coincidence, wouldn't it? So I guess there may be something reasonable about tradition.

In fact, in Liangzhou, rain is not a rare thing. In the past, Liangzhou has a specialized rain Taoist, known as Liao Widow. The widow, in the Liangzhou language, is the meaning of fool, crazy. At that time, Liangzhou has a hiatus, called "Liao widow begging for rain - Hu whole". Why? Because Liao Widow Zi's method of seeking rain was different from other Taoists. While others followed the rules, he said, "Wind, rain, thunder and lightning come with us, and the way is not up to the sky", and made a kind of Thunder Bowl - I know this one - with a charm painted on it, specially designed for the rainy season. I know this one too - with charms painted on it, specially used to hit the God of Thunder's sacred pillar, that is, the God of Thunder's tablet, to force the heavens to rain. After hitting a few thunder bowls, the sky must rain. This method is spiritual, but it offended the God of Thunder. In the end, the God of Thunder got annoyed and came down to kill him, so he ran away. As he ran, he hit the God of Thunder with the thunder bowls, and when he did, the God of Thunder ran away, but he would come back to chase him again, so Liao Widow Zi continued to run away. Finally, the thunder bowl used up, Liao widow on the body of the clothes, hats are painted to hit the God of Thunder charm, but everything can be used up, the God of Thunder is still chasing, and has been chased to the Liao widows naked, can not find anything to paint the charm, the God of Thunder to the Liao widows to split dead.

This incident is also true, a lot of Liangzhou people have heard. Liao Widow, the prototype of Black Widow in "The Pale Wolf of Western Xia".

There is another thing that happened in our village.

In the past, there was a very powerful Taoist master in our village, and in terms of seniority, I should call him grandpa, but he died at the age of thirty-seven, and didn't live to be called grandpa. He died in a very weird cross-country accident.

One day, someone in the village was building a house, and a beam was missing, so he asked the Taoist priest to perform a spell. The first time he did it, a black wind blew up in the sky. The first time the winds died down, he told people to go to a spring ditch to lift the beams. It turned out that he had taken it from somewhere else. When my own grandfather hit the farm, the wall fell down from time to time. Sometimes when it was well beaten, it would fall down right away. When the Taoist master did some math, he knew that there was a tai tai under the ground - do you know what a tai tai is? It is a kind of meat fungus-like organism, often appearing in the west, fried and eaten, very fragrant, and will continue to grow. According to folklore, tai tai belongs to a kind of land god and has great functional power, so if you build a wall where there is tai tai, it is very difficult to build it well. Even if you build a good wall, it will collapse immediately. The Taoist master then pinched a maoshan secret and told the people to continue to beat the wall. Suddenly, a black gas suddenly emerged from the ground and rolled towards the Taoist master, who cried out and fell to the ground. Knowing that he would not live long, Master Dao sighed and said to the village people, "Carry me home. I have offended the Tai Sui, and I will not live." Sure enough, it wasn't long before he died.

In the West, mystical phenomena are everywhere. Mysticism has become a mode of thinking for westerners, and Taoists, goddesses, and godly men, have formed enduring trades that have existed in the lives of westerners for many years. Coupled with the Liangzhou Xianxiao thousands of years of inculcation, the western people, religious beliefs, accounted for the vast majority, many westerners love to ask the reason for living. Now, with the invasion of foreign cultures and the weakening of traditional cultures such as Xianxiao, the situation may have changed to some extent.

Although Liangzhou Xianxiao is a folk art, it is full of the genes of Buddhist and Taoist culture, which advises goodness and filial piety as well as specific religious practice. For example, in the past, I often mentioned a song called "Lu Zu buy medicine" Xianxiao, which has a Taoist song called "five more words", which directly leaks the heavenly opportunity. The so-called heavenly secret is the trick of cultivating immortality and attaining Taoism--

It is so lonely to sit in the first night, and I sigh with my palms together.

The master then passes down the wonderful news, self thinking;

A breath of air, the head of the three hanging ah, up and down the circle,

The plough ox sucks the water through the gateway, the pearl curtains rolled upside down.

The second night of meditation is a good time to get away from it, the devil's son stole the treasure,

The six thieves are bound to make a noise, how is it good.

The soundless temple touched the golden bell, a loud sound,

suddenly woke up the hero, and drove away the devil army.

The three nights of meditating on the moon are high, and it is a good time to get away.

The turtles and snakes at the bottom of the sea are stirring up the water in the kidneys.

The threefold fire should be guarded against, and the Caoxi water should be used,

A bit of holy water falls in the center of the city, and it is free and healthy.

This is a good news,

The world can be known to a few people, but all the laws are one.

The Sutra Recitation Hall is a place to listen to the Sutra, and it is clear,

On the path of the Three Mysteries, the Three Thousand Meritorious Acts are performed.

The moon will fall in the fifth night, and I will clap my hands,

I have escaped the Ten Hells today, and who can compare with me.

The top of Kunlun releases light, bright and clear,

The golden dragon and the jade dragon shine in ten directions, and ten thousand paths of sunlight.

It starts from the first shift of cultivation to the fifth shift, and explains clearly what to pay attention to at each hour, starting from learning to meditate at the time of the first shift, and going on to the final cultivation of immortality and attainment of the Way. These five shifts are actually the five stages of cultivation. In the future, when there is a chance, I can talk about it in detail.

The true significance of all this is not necessarily known even to the blind sages themselves who sang the Hsien Hsiao - they just learned it from their masters and didn't know the meaning behind the words - I, however, have always had an innate intuition about cultivation. So I was enlightened as soon as I heard it, and in turn told the blind sages what the purpose of this Taoist song was, how they were told to practise, etc.

The common people of Liangzhou certainly don't know that there are these things in Xianxiao, but they live in such a cultural atmosphere that they naturally have a gene of faith. In their daily lives, they would then subconsciously, pass on this culture from generation to generation.

This cultural gene is also present in my works. It is a kind of flavor, a kind of breath, an atmosphere, a pulse, a kind of thinking, not a pile of information. With this thing, the work is full, is alive, can let people keep digging in, different readers, may dig out different things, then, the work is likely to be passed on; without this thing, the work is poor, is dead, it is popular for a period of time, and when that heat is over, it will be like the fall leaves in the fall, turned into a part of the soil, and be forgotten.

So, the main character of my work has always been culture, and people are just the carriers of culture. They all may have a large number of spiritual monologues, and those psychological activities reflect both the code of the soul, the code of fate, and the culture carried by the characters. This thing, like the characterization and specific plot, constitutes my work. It is like a ghost that has been wandering for a thousand years. Without it, my creation would be just a short game. When the game is over and the party is over, no matter how lively it is, it's just a phantom dream that leaves nothing behind.

That is why the wise men have said, "Life is like a dream." The real and the imaginary in the eyes of many people are actually reversed, because, they think that the real life is nothing but a story or memory that will soon pass, while the soul, which they think is nothing, is what accompanies them in life and in death. Sometimes, what I see as soul is actually culture. Culture can be passed on.