This article was originally published on the post bar "Daomen Law Bar", and was compiled as an extra at the author's invitation.
In Chapter 84 of Volume 11, "Regrets or Not", the Confucianism cultivator revealed his plans for the future through Shui Yunshan's mouth, which reversed the image of adultery in the past and became a bit interesting.
An excerpt follows:
Shui Yunshan said: "Senior Brother Jiang, you should have heard of it, why did spiritual treasures disappear after the Wei and Jin Dynasties? Why did few immortals come to the world after the mid-Tang Dynasty?"
Shui Yunshan continued: "Rumors say that this is the age of the end of the Dharma, but why does the age of the end of the Dharma come about? Of course, I can't explain these questions, but is there such a possibility?
Because the emperor's authority is no longer there? The emperor is the son of heaven, but he cannot take orders for heaven. Is this a way against heaven? Since the middle Tang Dynasty, the authority of the emperor has been lost. He is called the lord of the world, but he is actually a puppet.
Acting on the Taoist sect’s will, especially after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, is even more untrue.”
Shui Yunshan said: "I have never denied that this is a guess. I also said just now that this is just a possibility. But since it is possible, do we need to try it? And I think this possibility
It is not false. Xuanyuan, Fuxi, Shennong, Shaohao, Zhuanyu, the five emperors who became saints, did they ever use the power of faith? Further down, before the founder of the Celestial Master established the religion, which immortal god relied on the power of faith to soar? What is the power of faith?
What is it? Why does Heaven need people from the lower world to pay credit? What do they use their credit to do? Senior Brother Jiang, have you thought about these questions?"
Excluding the method given by Confucianism later, which is to restore the emperor's authority, based on Shui Yunshan's question, this article, other online articles, history, and politics, try to make a guess.
Where does the end of the Dharma come from:
In "The Fairy Gourd" written by Wandering Toad, the end of the Dharma era comes from the severance of the great road. The great road in the universe is either occupied and taken away by the ancestors of other universes, or taken away by the ancestors of this universe to create a new world. Only the great road remains.
Planting seeds is not enough to support the collapse of the universe. In reality, it is similar to "class solidification", such as the "uselessness theory" formed because it is difficult to find a job.
In "Douluo Dalu" written by the third son of the Tang family, although it does not write about the end of the law, according to the upgrade of Douluo, soul rings are needed - the hundred thousand year old soul beasts in the forest and sea are killed and the soul rings can be obtained.
It is speculated that in a few years, there will no longer be soul rings that are ten thousand years old or even more than a thousand years old in Douluo Continent, and soul masters will no longer be able to upgrade.
According to the author's reading records, the sources of the end of the Dharma world are nothing more than "class solidification" and "entropy increase". If there are other ways, fellow Taoists are welcome to add.
Shui Yunshan’s first question: Spiritual treasures are extinct. Based on this, we can guess that before the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the main way to cultivate immortality was resource-based cultivation. The monks before the Wei and Jin Dynasties had used up all the resources. Nowadays, the powerful magic weapons are basically the same as before.
Made. However, as too many resources are needed to cultivate immortality, the resources on the earth are exhausted. It is no longer possible to create powerful magic weapons, let alone use magic weapons to cultivate immortality.
Xuanyuan, Fuxi, Shennong, Shaohao, and Zhuanyu were the five emperors who became saints. Did they ever use the power of faith?
This description is even more interesting. The author is limited by the limitations of the author, and cannot all describe their contributions. Emperor Xuanyuan’s main contribution was to eliminate demons and unify them. Others include the creation of Chinese characters by his subordinates Cangjie and Luozu.
Making silk, Fuxi performing the Eight Diagrams, and Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs. These are all great meritorious deeds. Based on this, we can guess that in the beginning, the most important thing to cultivate in immortality was meritorious deeds. There is also a corresponding description in "Baopuzi" that "people want to be immortals"
, you should do three hundred good deeds, and if you want to be an immortal, you should do one thousand two hundred good deeds." (from Chapter 5 of Volume 7 of this book)
"Baopuzi" was written in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Based on this, we can guess that before the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the main way to cultivate immortality was to cultivate merits and magic weapons. Initially, it was to cultivate merits.
If you want to know what the age of Dharma is, you need to first know what the age of Dharma is. If the age of Dharma is clear, then the end of Dharma can be inferred based on this.
The author believes that the world is understandable. I believe that all the gods in the book were ascended by people on earth. Based on this, the author makes the following speculations.
In the beginning, human heroes did various things that benefited the people, such as making fire, building houses, and making characters. They generated a lot of merit power. In their ignorance, the ancestors of the human race learned the method of cultivating immortality with the help of merit power.
As the number of people cultivating immortals further developed, the human race learned how to use various spiritual stones, spiritual herbs, and magic weapons to cultivate immortality, which reached its peak before the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
With the depletion of spiritual stones, the decline of cultivating immortals was inevitable. However, it was still feasible to cultivate merit and virtue at that time, so the writing method of cultivating merit and virtue in Baopuzi came into being.
A problem with practicing merit is that the merit will be concentrated on the person who did it first.
Analogous to hybrid rice, which is beneficial to the country and the people, if the world can cultivate immortality, then Yuan Longping can undoubtedly become an immortal through this. But then the problem arises, after Yuan Longping does this thing
For people, I guess everyone doesn’t know.
Therefore, when the power of merit is cultivated later, it will only be most obvious to its creator, and other people cannot cultivate immortality based on it. This is a bit similar to "There are three thousand avenues, choose one to join the path" in "The Immortal Gourd". It is similar to "
The person who got on the bus closed the door.”
What is credibility?
Faith, the power of faith. There is a similar description in Tomato's "Panlong". The power of faith can help gods practice. It is described that the main god can occupy most of the power of faith, while other gods can only
occupy a small part of it.
In the beginning, ascension relied on merit and virtue to achieve immortality, but why is there no merit now? Only faith?
What do you need faith to do in the fairy world?
Could it be that faith is the power of merit?
Judging from Zhang Laodao's performance when Zhao Zhiran met the Lord of Qingshan. Even though Zhang Laodao did not understand Zhao Zhiran's merit power cultivation method at first. But at that time, after Zhang Laodao observed the merit power inner elixir, judging from Zhang Laodao's performance at that time
, you should also understand that what Zhao Zhiran cultivates is the power of merit.
Zhang Laodao can understand, but what about other people in the Taoist sect? Even if other people don't understand, they should understand the method of cultivating the power of merit.
So, even if Confucianism does not have the second rope magic weapon, it is very possible to understand the cultivation of merit power.
So, why don’t other people use merit cultivation?
Based on this, we make speculations about the historical changes in Taoist practice methods today.
In ancient times, people ascended with the help of merit. Later, merit was added to magic weapons, which was also the era when the most people ascended. Later, a small amount of merit ascended. And later, because the three thousand avenues were occupied by the previous ancestors, the merits were mainly provided for the training of the previous ancestors (similar to Junshan
The merit power of the temple can only be attributed to Zhao Zhiran, and the second abbot Jin Jiu could not use it). It is difficult for subsequent Taoist priests to use the merit to ascend again.
Therefore, the previous ascended patriarchs, on the one hand, practiced for merit (faithfulness in the eyes of Taoist priests), and on the other hand, in order to support their descendants, they adopted the method of teaching. The Taoist sect provided faith, and the patriarchs passed down some divine power to help the Taoist monks practice.
Practice (similar to the god-given soul ring in "Douluo Dalu").
Problems Zhao Zhiran encountered after practicing
Zhao Zhiran’s current practice is mainly limited by three aspects:
The first is the power of merit, which is mainly the accumulation of quantity.
The second is the official position in Shifang Jungle, which can provide Zhao Zhiran with the next stage of training.
The third is to teach the enemy, which can provide Zhao Zhiran with spells to fight against the enemy.
As I write this, I realize that these limitations of Zhao Zhiran are not a problem at all for another person.
Sure enough, as another Taoist friend said, could it be that Emperor Jiajing was a great monk in the Hedao realm?
In the end of the Dharma world, in fact, in current terms, it should be that the development of human society has encountered a technological bottleneck.
Therefore, if the first industrial revolution and the second industrial revolution can be carried out, these are the things that will really have great merit. That is to break through the conventional routine of literature and develop science and technology.
Only by developing science and technology, the number of human beings will increase significantly, their merits will increase, and their faith will increase. Only in this way can more Taoist priests ascend. Then, they can colonize alien planets and increase the population. Only in this way can more and more Taoist priests ascend.
, no longer just requires faith.
The replies from Taoist friends in the Tieba forum are also very exciting. The excerpts are as follows:
Faith is the power of merit, so two key points can be derived
First, merit must be known to everyone in order to gain merit power. If you do things silently to benefit the people in the world, but no one knows about it, then no matter how great your merit is, it will have no merit power.
This knowledge does not have to be clear and clear. As long as you are ignorant or even unconsciously associate the secondary merit with you, you will be able to continuously obtain the power of merit.
So you have to believe it. If you believe it, no matter whether it is really your merit or not, the merit will be associated with you, which means that the merit will be obtained by you.
This leads to the next point
Second, the power of merit can also be stolen. The so-called merit of greed, even if you did not do everything, as long as you make others believe that you did it, the merit will be yours.
This deduces the theoretical basis of Confucianism, which is to use the power of the emperor to seize the world's merits and take them for himself, so that the people can truly believe that all the benefits come from the emperor, and the emperor can naturally obtain a steady stream of merit.
, that is, credibility.
Similarly, the dispute between Buddhism and Taoism is the same. Your Taoist believers believe in the Three Pure Ones, and our Buddhist believers believe in the Buddha. As long as the believers truly believe that all gifts come from the Three Pure Ones (Buddha/God), then they can obtain merit.
, no matter whether those good things were done by them or not.
The above is the contribution of Tieba friend: liuzhimin9602
To clarify, merit and faith may be interdependent. How much faith is generated (in Buddhism, it is the power of vows), how much merit will be generated at the same time. There are methods that can be practiced with merit and generate faith for heaven at the same time.
On the other hand, it also consumes a lot of faith for gods to come down to earth to show their holiness.
Since a certain time, the monks have changed their meritorious deeds to more conveniently absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. This has led to the actual reduction of trust. Now, trust is required for conferment and ascension. Perhaps it was later that Heavenly Court in order to ensure the lowest level
The rule of trust persists and is later enforced.
If this is the case, it means that there is actually no spare capacity for the gods to descend to the lower realms to manifest their holiness.
I am inclined to think that the "Innate Merit Sutra" and the Green Suo are a test, a regular test from heaven to the lower world. Because it cannot directly manifest the Holy Spirit, it uses the Green Suo to let go of this set of long-lost exercises. I think the ending will be Zhao
However, after his ascension, his faith became abundant again, and he himself appeared in the lower world to teach the practice of merit and virtue, making merit cultivation the mainstream of this world again.
The above is the contribution of Tieba friend: Kuroyu hime
I feel that faith and merit are not the same thing. Faith is the heart of belief, it is worshiping gods as if they are there, and its essence is idealism. Only when believers believe from the heart can faith be born. If you have Jiuzhou Pavilion statues and the like, you can store them.
, otherwise it should dissipate out of thin air. Of course, it can be used directly on the spot like the soldier's faith on the Buddha in the Battle of Hongyuan. But the power of merit is not like that. It is more like the effect of cause and effect. As long as there is a cause (good deeds)
If it happens), there must be consequences (merits), that is, the objective existence of materialism. Economic reform, scientific progress, and other direct correlations will generate merits, which can help set bones (enter spiritual practice), kill thieves (stop fighting), and help ascend (even if they are monks).
generate merit
It is the attribution mechanism after the merit power is generated. Is it based on the involvement of taking the whole, dividing the big and small, or other things? I didn’t know clearly. The merit mentioned above is quite open to ideas.
In addition, the use of trust in Heaven is actually not important. Trust itself is (relatively) not important. The key point is that Heaven does not have that many establishments. Heaven has limited space, and everyone has a thousand years or eighty thousand years, so they have to use trust to limit the number of people who ascend.
The above is the contribution of Tieba Taoist friend: Niba is just an egg.
Note:: Since Taoist Babao’s exploration of the world is still relatively shallow, this article does not represent Taoist Babao’s views and has nothing to do with spoilers.