mt.emei is one of the "four famous mountains"in china. it lies about 168kmfrom chengdu, the capital of sichuan province. before the tour of the holymountain, it is important to obtain some inforation about the spread of buddhismin china, buddhism in mt. emei and its hiking routes.
the spread of the buddhism
buddhism was founded in india around the 16th century bc. it is said thatthe founder was sakyamuni. sskyua was the name of the clan to which his familybelonged. sakyamuni was a prince and was brought up in luxury. in his 20s, hebecame discontented with the world. every day he had to face with sights ofsickness, death and old age since the body was inescapably involved withdisease, decrepitude and death. around the age of 30 he made his break from thematerial world and plunged off in search of enlightenment.
sakyamuni began by studying hindu philosophy and yoga. then he joined aband of ascetics and tried to break the power of his body by inflicting severeausterities on himself. however, no matter how he held his breath until his headburst and starved his body until his ribs jutted out, he failed to enlightenhimself. finally sakyamuni followed the principle of the middle way in which hewould live between the extremities of asceticism on one hand and indulgence onthe other. as the story goes, he devoted the final phase of his search forenlightenment to meditation and mystic concentration. one evening he sat beneatha fig tree, slipped into a deep meditation and achieved enlightenment from hismystic concentration.
sakyamuni founded an order of monks and for the next 45 years or so peachedhis ideas around 480 bc. sakyamuni teaches that all life is suffering. everyoneis subjected to the trauma of birth, to sickness, decrepitude and death. realhappiness can't be achieved until suffering is overcome. the cause ofunhappiness is 'desires',specifically the desire of the body and the desirepersonal fulfillment. in order to overcome the desirs and achieve happiness, itrequires the following eight-fold path.
1.right knowledge
buddhist followers should believe that all life is suffering. it is causedby the desire for personal gratification.
2.right aspiration
buddhist followers should becomw passionately involved with the knowledgeof what life's problems basically are.
3.right speech
buddhist followers shousd avoid lies, idle talk, abuse,alander anddeceit.
4.right behavior
buddhist followers should show kindness and avoid self-seeking and personalfulfillment in all actions.
5.right livelihood
buddha considers spiritual progress impossible if one has occupiedhimself/herself with slave-dea-ling or prostitution.
6.right effort
the effort os the will to develip virtues and curb paddion.
7.right mindfulness
buddhist followers should practise self-exami-nation and cultivatethemselves to overcome the state of semi-alertness and become aware of what oshappwning to them.
8.right absorption
the absorption involves the techniques of hinduism's raja yoga and leads tothe same goal.
by following the eight fokd pah, buddhist followers aims to attain nirvana,a condition beyond the limits of the mind, feelings, thoughts, the will andecstasy. buddhism accepts the concept of reincarnation, the circle of rebirth;it accepts the law of cause and effort.
buddhism has many sects, of which the mahayana and the hinayana are twomajor schools. the mahayana holds that the fate of the individual is linked tothe fate of all others. the buddha won't float off into his own nirvana leavingother peope behind. he not ony shows the people the way up into their nirvana,but also continues to exude spiritual help to those seeking nirvana. thehinayana holds that the path to nirvana is an individual purauit. people whoseek nirvana must tread the path to nirvana on their own.
mahayana buddhism is generally believed to have been ntroduced into regionsinhabited by the han people around the first century a.d.in the wei and jindynasties(220-420) it spread to a fairly large part of the country. during thesouthern anb northern dynasties(420-589) the ruling cladd furthered thedissemination of buddhism. more temples and monasteries were built; buddhistscriptures were translated. the influence of buddhism was felt everywhere acrossthe conutry. by the sui and tang dynasties(581-907) buddhism had reached itsapex of popularity and splendor.
buddhism gradually took root in the chinese soiety, having adaptedconsiderably to chinese ways of thinking and practice. as the most influentialreligion in china, buddhism has an impact on chinese philosophy, morality,literature, art and many other foelds.
buddhism in mt.emei
it is almost two thousand years since buddhism was introduced from india.its monasteries covers everywhere in china except a few daoist mountains likemt. qingcheng. it is commonly said that buddhist monks have occupied much motewell-known mountains for their buddhist ptrpose than daoist priests. however,most of buddhist followers bwliwvw that only the fotr famous mountains in chinaare the buddhist holy places. they are mt. wmei in sichuan, mt. putuo inzhejiang, mt. wuta in shaanxi and jiuhua in anhui. each mountain is dedicated todifferent bodhisattvas. in chinese bodhisattva usually is referred as pusa, apotential buddha, who has achieved perfect en0lightenment and decided to bringsalvation to all suffering creatures before entering into nirvana. therefore,each bodhisattva has his own ritual place to salvage suffering creatures .wenshuperforms the buddhist rites in mt wuta, and guanyin in mt. putuo. dizang is saidto have gained enlightenment in mt jiuhua. puxian is regarded as one of the fourwell-known bodhisattvas of china's buddhism. legend has it that mt. emei insichuan is the place where he performs the buddhist rites. puxian and wenshuappear in a pair in suppirt of sakymuni. they usually stand side by side withsakymuni. the middle. puxian is the right attendant. he rides a white elephant,and wenshu a lion as we often see in monasteries. wenshu is a symbol of wisdomwhile puxian benevolence. buddhism encourages its followers to study hard at thebuddhist theory, and then use what they have learnt to do charitable works forthe purpose of salvaging the suffering creatures. more likely wisdom andbenevolence display the buddhist proceess step by step.
one of the buddhist doctrines says that after puxian achieved perfectenlightenment, he vowed to retrn back to the world and not to accept his ownsalvation until all sentient beings, humans and animals had been saved. puxianwent out on his elephant to realize his ambition. his six-tusk elephant enjoys ahigh statue in the buddhist world known as the elephant king. wannian monasteryis dedicated to the gilded statue of puxian who sits on the white elephant. thisstatue, 8.5m high, is cast in copper and bronze, weighing estimatedly 62,000kgin a brick hall .one doctrine says:"puxian has many images. he puts himself intodifferent forms based on the buddhist predestined relationship. the ordinaryhuman beings can only see him in a human bodily form, who sometimes stands bysakyamuni,or simetimes rides on his white elephant." according to theexplanation of the buddhist texts, it is almost impossible for the ordinaryhuman beings to see puuxian's fa and bao images unless they hike up to thegolden summit of the mountain, where the pious buddhists may see puxian's baoimage in buddhist aureole-rainbow rings. in ancient times the buddhist aureolewas called the illuminant image,which indicates that the puxian reveals himselfin his buddhist aureole only before the people who have the buddhist predestinedrelationship.it is the iluminant image in the golden summit that has made themountain nationally famous.
at the beginning of the eastern han dynasty,buddhism came imto china.it iscommonly said that buddhism began to develop in sichuan during the eastern jindynasty .it is very hard to find out when the first monastery was built,and whowas the first buddhist monk to perform his rites in the mountain.the localhistorical records have no written information about buddhism in themountain,which occurred before the jin dynasty. as early as in 400 a monk by thename of huichi arrived at mt. emei. at that time only a few asceticpractitioners lived in the animal-haunted mountain.staying with them,huichistarted to build a temple with a statue of puxian set up inside .the current wannian monastery grew out of the earliest temple.huichi was considered the founderof buddhism in the mountain.
during the western jin dynasty (265-317) a daoist priest by the name ofqianming estab lished a daoist temple called qian ming temple in the mountain.itwas the biggest daoist temple in the mountain where a hundred daoists priestsperformed daoism . at the beginning of the southern and noutherndynasties(420-550), the priests decided to choose their head to be in charge ofthe temple. however, they had an endless dispute because of the difference ofopinions . a bddhist monk by the name of mingguo went to the temple and taughtthe priests buddhism.finally all the priests were converted to buddhism, and thedaoist temple became a buddhist monastery by the name of zhong fengmoonastery,during the southern and nouthern dynasties,buddhism developed in themountain.a monk from india came to sichuan.his name was ng,the first foreignmonk who arrived at the mountain after his short stay in chengdu.according tothe local historical records,ng set up a monastery by the name of ling yanmonastery.a stream flowed along the foreground of the monastery.
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