My grandmother believes in Buddhism, but my father, on the contrary, has always opposed my grandmother's worship of Buddhism at the age of 70 or 80. This view is not only worried about what will happen to grandma when she goes out, but more importantly, her father has never believed in Buddhism. As far as I can remember, until my grandmother died at the age of 86, my father, who was over half a century old, still didn't believe in Buddhism. My grandmother and several old Buddhists raised funds to build a land temple at the entrance of the village. My grandmother often goes to Youxi Temple four or five miles away from the village on the fifteenth day of the first month, but my father never goes. My grandmother is over 80 years old and donated all the money she earned from pulling herbs and chopping brooms to the temple. I know my father has always been condescending.
The change of father's attitude towards Buddha caught us off guard, even a little strange. There is a Youxi Temple four or five miles north of the village. It is said that it originated in the early Ming Dynasty. Later, because the monks in the temple did not obey the rules, they committed lust, caution and were accidentally discovered when General Zhujiyang accompanied his mother to worship Buddha. When he came back, he killed a carbine with his army, burned the temple and killed the monk. Youxi Temple was once deserted. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there lived a phoenix in the current temple site, Chai Liao's room. The villagers rumored that Guanyin Bodhisattva had appeared, so they rebuilt the temple and used its old name. Youxi Temple in Nanhai has been dedicated to Guanyin Bodhisattva, which has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The countryside has been known as Guanyin and Goddess Bodhisattva since ancient times, which is very effective. I have a cousin who is said to have been infertile for several years after giving birth to a daughter. Later, she went to the Guanyin Bodhisattva in Youxi Temple to beg for a son. The next year, she had a son. She has been working outside for 30 years after graduating from college. We meet occasionally, but she still calls him a gift from the goddess bodhisattva. Even so, my father still doesn't believe in Buddhism and doesn't go to Youxi Temple to worship Guanyin Bodhisattva.
Five or six years ago, on the first day of the first lunar month, my father woke up in the morning and asked us if we would like to visit Guanyin Bodhisattva at the West Temple together, saying that it was to pay a New Year call to the Empress Bodhisattva. We couldn't believe our ears and thought it was wrong. Father said, you don't believe it! Even I don't believe that Goddess Guanyin can be so effective. One cold winter last year, he felt very weak when he got up in the morning, so he wanted to take a day off. He came to the entrance of the ancient ancestral temple in front of the village, sat on the stone threshold to bask in the sun, and chatted with elderly people. An old man who was over ninety years old in the same village walked past the ancestral hall and saw my father. He said it was such a beautiful sun. You might as well go to Youxi Temple to help carry water. Father said that I am also a restless person. How can I sit here if my body can't eat? That old man is the elder of my family. Nearly ninety years old, he proposed to build an anteroom on the original scale of Youxi Temple. He raised money by himself, and he called on people to be craftsmen and coolies. The old man thinks so, too My father is one of the few people in the village who has never been idle. Say, that's it! Come with me to Youxi Temple! Let's walk slowly, and it's time for you to play. When I get there, help me carry water for the plasterer if I can eat, but I am still in poor health. Come back after lunch! I'm free anyway. Let's go and play. Father promised to go together. One is in his seventies and the other is in his nineties. Two old people went down to Youxi Temple in the warm winter sun.
When he arrived at the temple, the old man took his father to the Goddess Guanyin to burn incense and tell about today's events. With a dubious expression, my father respectfully followed the old man to Guanyin Bodhisattva. After a while, the old man asked him if he felt better. The bucket is not big. Give it a try! As a result, dad didn't feel particularly tired after picking water in the temple all day that day, just like doing other farm work at home at ordinary times. Father doesn't know what happened. However, from then on, he believed in Guanyin Bodhisattva. The first day of the first lunar month, February 19th, June 19th, September 19th, etc. Several Goddess Guanyin will go to Youxi Temple on Buddha's Birthday and Buddha's Festival, and have little time at other times. Apart from this temple, he hardly goes to worship Buddha anywhere else in his village, but only believes in Guanyin Bodhisattva. I have no objection to this matter. As long as there is a degree, the old people have their own beliefs. I think it is good for their health. This is what my grandmother who has been traveling in Xianyou thought when she was alive.
About three or four years ago, my father said that he wanted to go to Putuo Mountain in Nanhai, the hometown of Guanyin Bodhisattva, for life. I said, this is not difficult! If your old man wants to go, our children will go with him. Actually, it's easier said than done. I have asked him out several times and always said that farm work was too busy.
On the second day of the first month of this year, my wife and children are going to Ningbo to see my father-in-law for the New Year. It happened that my mother and her sister went to Ningbo to see their brother, my great uncle. My wife and father and I work together and let him go to Ningbo with us. Maybe we can take the opportunity to go to Mount Putuo. Father heard that he had the opportunity to go to Putuo, Nanhai, and readily agreed.
I was a little disappointed when I arrived in Ningbo. There are many people going to Mount Putuo in the first month, so I'm afraid I can't buy a boat ticket by car. I will discuss it with my father. Why don't we go to Putuo during the summer vacation or when we are relatively free? How about going to Tiantong Temple and Wang Yu Temple near Ningbo this time? Father didn't speak, so I could see that he was a little sad. Sure enough, after a while, he said that if he didn't go to Putuo in Nanhai this time, he didn't know when he would go again. We are a little puzzled. My father also said that he made a wish in front of Guanyin Bodhisattva in Youxi Temple in his hometown, and he must go to Putuo, the hometown of Guanyin Empress, for the rest of his life. He kept his word. Only in this way can we understand my father's Putuo complex. He is trying to fulfill his promise.
I had to find another way, perhaps my father's sincerity touched God, and the result was somewhat unexpected. Through a relative who works in Ningbo Travel Agency, I learned that there happened to be an individual group in their club going to Putuo the next day, so I immediately entrusted her to sign up and go through the formalities.
On the fourth day of the first month, my wife and I got up at four o'clock in the morning, first drove to Ningbo to find a travel agency car, and took our elderly parents, in-laws and aunts on a journey to Putuo. Get on the bus from Ningbo, cross the sea-crossing bridge, and arrive at Zhujiajian Island Island ferry in about two hours. When we got off the bus, the car in front was shocked. Several super-large parking lots that can accommodate hundreds of cars are full of cars, and both sides of the road into the ferry are filled with cars without parking spaces. I feel glad. If I drive myself, I'm afraid I can't even find a parking space.
Fortunately, there is a tour guide to buy tickets to guide the whole journey. We stood in line for about an hour and got on the speedboat to Putuo. On the island. God, there are crowds everywhere, and it's dark. The tour guide told us that there were nearly 60,000 tourists coming to the island on the first day of the third grade. Later, I saw on an electronic advertisement screen in the scenic spot that by the morning of the fourth day 10, the number of people on the island had exceeded 30,000.
Because the island is full of people, we can only follow the instructions of the tour guide and walk quickly in several scenic spots mechanically for fear of crowding. We visited the open-air statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, Fusaiji, Tuotuoshi scenic spot in the west and so on. My wife and I are so tired that we take care of five old people with food and drink in our hands. My parents-in-law, mother and aunt are almost seventy years old, so they have been running around. Obviously, they are at a loss, and they have to stand down and have a rest from time to time to keep up with the team.
On the other hand, my father in his seventies is the oldest person in our party. Except for a solemn face of worshipping Buddha, he always smiles and walks calmly. I also ask questions with great interest from time to time, especially for Guanyin Bodhisattva. He also told some effective stories that we have never heard before and passed down from mouth to mouth in the countryside. In front of the towering Guanyin Buddha, overlooking the hazy prospect of the sea, in Fusaiji Scenic Area, my father will take the initiative to let me take pictures of him as a souvenir. He walked at the front of the trip almost all day and didn't feel tired at all. I asked him if he was tired of doing farm work at home or was he almost tired of being carried around? He said, it must be hard! In fact, even my wife and I feel tired, but my father said not tired, which can only be an explanation. People are happy when they are happy. He went to Putuo to worship Guanyin and had a dream come true, which brought him a good mood.
I got up at four o'clock in the morning and returned to my father-in-law's house at nearly ten o'clock in the evening. I was so tired that I almost fell down. Only my old father, from the time he boarded the tourist bus returning from the island, still didn't feel tired at all, unlike other tourists who dozed off as soon as they got on the bus. He also wanted to share with us his impression of worshipping Guanyin in Putuo, and I was so tired that I chatted with him one by one. Looking at my father's satisfied expression, my lover and I, who are equally tired, feel tired and worthwhile, which is very gratifying.
Shortly after returning from Putuo, my father's respect and belief in Guanyin Bodhisattva in Nanhai gained a new interpretation. There is a lot of rain in spring in central Zhejiang. When it rains, I often call home and tell my parents that the road is slippery when it rains, and try not to go up and down the mountain if nothing happens. My father is hard of hearing and my mother always answers the phone. After asking about my family and what to say, I always ask my father what he is doing. My father is hard of hearing and can't hear clearly. He doesn't like watching TV very much. On rainy and snowy days, he will play red five cards with his old friends. When I called home that time, my mother said that my father was upstairs chanting scriptures and would never go out to play cards again after returning from Putuo.
Father can recite scriptures? He has only been in primary school for a year or two. How many words can he read? Father's study is a pain in grandparents' hearts. When the two old people were alive, because their father didn't want to study, he always encouraged me to study hard. They said that my father didn't want to study at ordinary times, and once even brought him food to study, so he skipped school and went directly to work at the largest reservoir site in the county hundreds of miles away. I even think absurdly that there are many uncommon words in Buddhist scriptures, and my father won't encounter them when he recites them, so I skip the next one and just mess around.
A few days later, when I came home, I was surprised to find that my father could read a lot of scriptures seriously. My father's analysis made me feel even more incredible. He said that all the scriptures he read were taught by Guanyin Bodhisattva himself. It is said that there was a time when a voice woke him up at night. He followed the voice to the entrance of the village, where stood a woman in white, whose face resembled Putuo Mountain Bodhisattva. A woman asked her father to accompany her in chanting. Every night. After a while, my father was able to recite several classics, such as The Classic of Men in White, The Classic of Super Life and The Classic of King Gao, which I have never even heard. Father also took out a piece of paper with words he didn't know listed on it, and asked me to teach him. I read a lot of words and I don't know them. Fortunately, the internet is convenient now, and I can tell him the meaning of words by checking my mobile phone.
My father is seventy-five years old this year. He has always been thin, but his bones have become tough in recent years. I still do some light farm work and plant some fruits and vegetables in Shan Ye every year. Except for the old couple who eat it themselves, we often give it to the children every once in a while. On rainy and snowy days, my father will recite the scriptures upstairs. Naturally, he goes to Youxi Temple to worship Guanyin several times a year, and his life is very leisurely and full.