On one occasion, Bai Juyi saw this scene in Bajie Beach, Yihe River:
Bajie Beach twists and turns like a python on the river. There are nine steep rocks on the beach, surrounded by dangers; The water in the river is fast-flowing, sometimes like a runaway wild horse, rushing down, and sometimes like an oolong twisting a column, spinning and rolling. At this time, a fleet went down the river. As they approached the beach, the boatmen jumped into the icy water, tried their best to stall the boat, slowed it down and escorted it step by step across the beach. Just as the last boat was about to cross the beach, I heard an old and frail helmsman scream. The boat hit a steep rock, the hull was broken and the old helmsman was seriously injured. There was a sudden cry in the river.
Bai Juyi looked at the river with a dignified expression. The servant repeatedly advised him to go back to Xiangshan Temple, but he just didn't want to leave. It was not until all the boatmen were rescued ashore that Bai Juyi, whose legs were frozen, was carried back to Xiangshan Temple by servants.
Bai Juyi couldn't calm down for a long time after seeing the danger of boat people crossing Bajie Beach. He vowed to dig this Bajie Beach that devoured the lives of boat people. However, digging Bajie Beach needs a lot of money. In order to realize his wish, Bai Juyi invited the monks in Xiangshan Temple on the one hand, and lobbied the rich gentry in Luoyang on the other hand, asking the people to make joint efforts to dig Bajie Beach. After more than two years of preparation, the necessary funds were finally raised.
After all the funds were put in place, Bai Juyi, then 73, decided to personally preside over the stone excavation and river dredging. Boat people and masons along the coast of yi river spontaneously devoted themselves to digging Bajie Beach. After a winter of intense construction, the nine bridge stones in Bajie Beach were chiseled away and the Yi River was dredged, and the dangerous beach for many years became a thoroughfare. From then on, boat people no longer have to worry about the danger of sailing.
On the day when Bajie Beach officially opened, Bai Juyi excitedly wrote "Open Longmen Bajie Beach":
Seventy-three people died and vowed to open a dangerous road to Tianjin.
No boat capsized at night, and the shin never suffered from it.
Ten miles on the beach turn into a river man, and eight prisons in cold and yin turn into spring.
Although I am dead, I secretly pity future generations.
In his later years, Bai Juyi didn't think about himself, but about suffering beings. He hopes to do some charity for the people in his lifetime, so that future generations will never be troubled by natural disasters.
Bai Juyi took this compassion wherever he was an official. In the second year of Tang Muzong Changqing (822), Bai Juyi was appointed as the secretariat of Hangzhou. The first thing Bai Juyi did after taking office was to observe the people's feelings. After investigation, he learned that the most important government affair in Hangzhou was to build water conservancy, so he devoted himself to this work. There used to be six wells in Hangzhou, which were connected to the West Lake through a stone canal, and were the daily drinking water sources of Hangzhou people. At this time, these six wells have been blocked. Bai Juyi immediately began to dredge six wells to ensure the drinking water of Hangzhou people. Bai Juyi's greater achievement in Hangzhou is to manage the West Lake. Shortly after Bai Juyi arrived in Hangzhou, he built a lake embankment and raised the original embankment by several feet to stop the tide from flooding into the West Lake and increase the water storage capacity of the West Lake. After careful management, the West Lake not only maintains beautiful scenery, but also becomes the water source for irrigating more than 1,000 hectares of farmland. Farmers in Hangzhou are no longer troubled by drought.
Bai Juyi has done many practical things for Hangzhou people with compassion, so he is loved by Hangzhou people. In May of the 4th year of Changqing (824), Bai Juyi, the secretariat of Hangzhou, left Hangzhou after his term expired, and the people of Hangzhou helped the elderly and took care of the young, blocking the way to see him off. Its scenery made Bai Juyi burst into tears. He wrote a poem "People from Other States" with deep affection:
The old people walked back, and the pot was full of farewell banquets.
There are no trees in Gan Tang, so why cry?
The taxes of poor families are very heavy, and farmers are eager for dry land.
Leave only one lake to save the disaster year with you.
In the year of Bao Liyuan in Tang Jingzong (825), Bai Juyi was appointed as Suzhou secretariat. Bai Juyi has done a lot of work for Suzhou people with compassion in just over a year as the secretariat of Suzhou. As soon as he arrived, he found that some rivers in Suzhou had been blocked, which hindered water transport. Therefore, Bai Juyi presided over the excavation of a Shantang River from Nagato to Huqiu, and ordered people to plant thousands of peach trees and plum trees on both sides of the river. The excavation of Shantang River has greatly facilitated traffic, and it is more convenient for Buddhist believers to burn incense and worship Buddha in Huqiu Temple.
As a Buddhist believer, Bai Juyi not only did a lot of work to benefit the country and the people, but also tried his best to protect Buddhist temples. He made a wish to build a wheel of a thousand buddhas hall in Suzhou South Temple (825-827), and hid it in a temple in the mainland. It looks like a flower tower with a shaft inside and can rotate. Because there are Tibetan scriptures in it, it's called Runwheel Tibetan. Rotary wheel storage is a rotatable Buddhist scripture bookshelf in Buddhist temples, also known as rotary wheel storage. That is to say, the bookshelf is made into an octagonal book shed with the vertical axis at the center, so that the book shed can rotate, so that the required books can be picked up; This kind of bookshelf is called wheel storage, which is similar to folk lanterns. Rotating storage system starts with rotating storage. The so-called "turning to Tibet" means turning to read the Tripitaka Sutra, which is different from "looking to Tibet". "Looking at Tibet" means reading the scriptures every day and surrendering every word, while "turning to Tibet" only means reading the first, middle and last lines of each volume of scriptures, so that Buddhist disciples can have a stable place to practice.
Then, he raised money everywhere to repair the temple, and he ran for it until he left office. Due to Bai Juyi's dedication, the project started in the autumn of the second year of Daiwa (828), which lasted for 8 years and was completed in the spring of the first year of Kaicheng (836). There are 250 Six Classics and 550 Eight Classics in the Thousand Buddha Hall. At this time, Bai Juyi, who is far away from Luoyang, the capital of the East, wrote the story of the stone hidden in the wheel of Suzhou Nanchan Qianfotang. Three years later, Bai Juyi sent sixty-seven volumes of Bai's Anthology, which was continued in the fourth year of Kaicheng (839), to the Thousand Buddha Hall in nanzenji, Suzhou for collection. He wants to make his literary works spread to future generations forever by virtue of the karma of the temple scriptures, so that his spiritual life can be passed down in words for a long time.
Bai Juyi lived in Luoyang in his later years, where he fell in love with Xiangshan Temple. He believes: "Luodu has four suburbs, and the mountains and rivers win, and Longmen is the first." Ten temples in Longmen, the winner of sightseeing, ranked first in Xiangshan. "He and the Xiangshan monk are like a full-fledged incense club, calling themselves' Xiangshan lay'. He once wrote the poem "Two Wonders of Xiangshan Temple":
An empty door is silent and idle, and the birds return with the clouds.
Homemade books are full of bottles and shelves, and half of them are included in Xiangshan.
Aifeng climbed the loose cover on the rock and sat on the edge of the moon lake.
He became attached to Yunquan and was born in this mountain as a monk.
From the poem, we can feel the poet's love for Xiangshan Temple. However, he felt very sorry for the disrepair and ruin of Xiangshan Temple, and decided to restore this ancient temple to facilitate the practice of Buddhist disciples. In order to successfully realize the desire to restore Xiangshan Temple, Bai Juyi racked his brains to raise money. In the fifth year of Daiwa (83 1), Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi's best friend, was seriously ill in Wuchang. On his deathbed, he asked his family to entrust Bai Juyi to write an epitaph for him. According to Yuan Zhen's will, Bai Juyi was asked to write an epitaph at home and gave him horses, silks, silver saddles and jade belts worth 600,000 to 700,000 yuan. Bai Juyi was deeply saddened by seeing things and thinking about people, and promised to start writing as soon as possible. However, after repeated refusals, Yuan Jia insisted on leaving money and goods. Bai Juyi thought that he had traveled to Buddhist temples, recited scriptures and made wishes with friends, so he decided to give the money to Xiangshan Temple as a repair, which was also a wish for friends.
With money from friends and family, and donations from other Buddhist disciples and laymen, the restoration project of Xiangshan Temple began in early May of the sixth year of Daiwa (832). They asked the monk to take charge of the restoration project and sent officials from Henan Province to help. After three months of intense construction, the dilapidated temple was restored and its former dignity was restored. Good men and women don't have to worry about safety when they go to the temple to attend the ceremony.
After the restoration of Xiangshan Temple, Bai Juyi wrote "The Story of Restoring Xiangshan Temple" and "Rebuilding Xiangshan Temple with Twenty-two Rhymes" respectively to commemorate the unique victory in the construction of Xiangshan Temple. Eight years later, in September of the fifth year (840), Bai Juyi, who was nearly 70 years old, funded the establishment of a Buddhist scripture hall in Xiangshan Temple, creating better conditions for the preservation of Buddhist classics in Xiangshan Temple. He is also happy to record this important event in the newly revised Xiangshan Temple Classic. 1 1 month, he collected nearly 1,000 poems from Luoyang into a banquet in the lower reaches of Luoyang 10 volume, which was hidden in Cang Jing Hall of Xiangshan Temple, so that his poems could be handed down to future generations for people with a destiny to read.
Two years later, in August of the sixth year of Huichang (846), Bai Juyi died at the age of 75. According to his will, his family buried him on the Pipa Peak in Xiangshan, where the pine and cypress are evergreen. On the day of burial, boat people and ordinary people from far and near helped the old and the young, and bid farewell to the parents who had been secretly pitying future generations for a lifetime with tears. In the place where Bai Juyi worked before his death, the general public still commemorates this compassionate old man in various forms. His spirit of compassion will be passed down to the afterlife forever.