They are Li Shiqian and Zhang Wendao. They are said to be ordinary because they both lived in the countryside and lived a farming Life at sunrise; they are said to be high achievers because they were considered by the people to be highly virtuous and had moral heights that were difficult for ordinary people to reach.
Sensitizing the villagers with virtue
Li Shiqian (李士謙), whose name is Ziyao (子約), was a native of Pingchin (平棘) in Zhao County (趙郡), which is also known today as Handan (成语之乡). Since his father died young, Shiqian lived with his mother. After his mother’s death, Shiqian donated his Family‘s house as a temple after three years of mourning. Li Shiqian was good at astronomy and mathematics, and he loved to study the arts, but he did not enter the government. After the death of his Parents, Shiqian gradually stopped drinking and eating meat, and paid attention to his morals and never talked about other people’s gossip.
Although Shiqian’s family was rich, he still lived a simple life, and was devoted to providing relief to the villagers. If he met a family that could not afford to pay for a funeral, he would help to bury the deceased; for example, when a pair of brothers fought over the division of their family property, he would pay for the one who did not have enough money to settle the grievances between the brothers. Shiqian’s virtuous behavior convinced the two brothers to give up their family assets to each other, and gradually they both became kind people.
Shiqian burned the coupons and refused to return the grain to the villagers
The Li family’s fields were fertile and the rice they planted grew well and yielded a good harvest. One day, Shiqian saw a thief cutting his rice, so he quietly walked away so as not to frighten the other party. Later, when his houseboy caught the thief stealing the grain, Li Shiqian ordered his houseboy to let him go, saying, “It was poverty that made him do it, so how could he be blamed?”
Li Shiqian was so kind and generous that he lent thousands of stones of grain to his neighbors in a disaster year. Unexpectedly, the next year’s crop still failed, and the villagers who had borrowed the grain and rice were unable to repay the grain and rice, so they apologized to Li Shiqian. Li Shiqian set up a banquet and summoned all the debtors to the banquet and burned all the IOUs in public.
Li Shiqian said to the people, “The grain I had in my house was originally for relief, not for hoarding for profit. Now that your debts have been settled, don’t take it to heart in the future.” In the third year, when there was a bumper crop, the villagers came to pay him back. Shiqian politely declined on the pretext that he had no evidence.
A few years later, when there was another famine in the world, Shiqian built a porridge house and gave porridge to tens of thousands of people who were saved by his kindness. In the spring, Shiqian gave a large amount of seed Food to the poor villagers to cultivate. The people of the village were grateful for Shiqian’s great virtue and said to him, “You have saved the lives of so many people. He said, “Yin virtue is like ringing in the ears, you can only know it yourself, but no one else can hear it. Now people know what I have done, so how can I talk about Yin De!”
Wise Li Jun, the Wonderful Explainer of the Three Teachings
There was a man in the village who did not believe in karma, so Li Shiqian advised him, “It is often said that a house of good deeds will have a reward, and a house of evil deeds will have a reward. Isn’t this the result of karma?” He also took the Buddhist example of the reincarnation of life and death, saying that people with different virtues will have different lives in this life and the next. Therefore, some people are reincarnated as gentlemen, some are reduced to villainy, and some are reduced to livestock, all of which are the results of different virtue karma.
This man asked Li Shiqian for advice on the advantages and disadvantages of the three religions of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, and Shiqian said, “Buddhism is like the sun, Taoism is like the moon, and Confucianism is like the five stars.” On the surface, it seems that they have advantages and disadvantages, but in fact, it is all about heaven shining on the world and making them work in harmony so as to nourish all living creatures.
When Li Shiqian died in the eighth year of Kaihuang, the people of Handan heard the news and said with tears in their eyes, “We, the people, did not die, but let Li Jun die!” Tens of thousands of townspeople gathered together unannounced to attend Li Shiqian’s funeral. The people financed the erection of a monument for Li Shiqian and engraved a long epitaph to remember his life of good deeds and his noble virtue of seclusion without asking for anything. Li Shiqian did not enter the temple and did not wear a robe, but he still managed to perfect his virtues in his own environment, and he was praised in history as “the virtuous Li Jun”.
The same historical script
Another ordinary and noble person of the Sui Dynasty was Zhang Wendao. The Zhang family had several thousand volumes of books, and Zhang Wendao had been soaking in them since he was a child, and he had read a lot of books. Zhang Wen Daidian knew the classic collections of literature such as Zhou Yi and Shang Shu by heart. The Sui Emperor Yang Jian recruited famous scholars from all over the world and appointed Fang Huiyuan, Zhang Zhongjian and Kong Cang as doctors.
Zhang Wendao visited Taixue, and Fang Huiyuan and others admired Zhang Wendao’s style of learning. When the students of Taixue (equivalent to today’s national university) asked Zhang Wendai for advice on difficult questions, he was able to explain them clearly one by one. When Su Wei, the right servant, heard of his reputation, he urged him to become an official. Zhang Wendao did not want to be an official, so he politely declined.
If you read more history, you will find an interesting phenomenon that history is very much like a play, where different characters perform almost the same script. Feng Deceive, a disciple of Meng Changjun of Qi, burned the coupons, so did Li Shiqian of Sui Dynasty, and Li Zijing, a righteous man of Yuan Dynasty. When Li Shiqian saw a thief stealing his crop, he avoided it and let the other side cut it without worry; when Zhang Wendao saw a thief cutting his wheat, he also quietly avoided it as if he did not see it.
When the thief found that Zhang Wen Daidian had avoided it, he dropped the wheat and thanked him. Zhang Wendao reassured him, “I won’t tell anyone.” That means, you can cut without worrying, and he insisted that the thief take all the wheat he cut.
After many years, the thief told the villagers about this incident, and the people were amazed to hear it. The people were amazed that it was not Zhang Wendao himself who told the story, but the thief himself. Zhang Wendao’s generosity was also reflected in his dealings with his neighbors. Once a neighbor built a wall and tried to take advantage of Zhang Wendao’s house. When Wen Dao knew about it, he simply demolished the old wall of his house, thus responding to the neighbor’s feelings.
Thinking of others despite extreme pain
One Time, Zhang Wenhua’s waist was suffering from a disease, so the doctor performed a surgical operation on him and accidentally cut him with a knife. At that time, Zhang Wendai fell on the bed in pain, because the extreme pain made him tremble. The frightened doctor kowtowed to Zhang Wentian and apologized. Zhang Wentian endured the severe pain, did not get angry and did not rebuke him, and told him to hurry back. When his wife found that Zhang Wentian had injuries on his body and asked him how he got them, he only said that he had accidentally fainted and fallen into the pit and bruised himself. Zhang Wendao concealed the doctor’s mistake and did not publicize it.
In his life, Zhang did not do great things, but only ordinary and small things. In dealing with others, Wen Daidai never reveals the shortcomings of others and is dedicated to being kind to people. Usually, Wen Daidai likes to amuse himself by hitting the coffee table with Ruyi, people compared him to Confucius’ disciples Min Ziqian and Yuan Xian. After Zhang Wundai’s death, the villagers funded a monument for him, praising his merits and honoring him as Mr. Zhang.
Li Shiqian and Zhang Wendao did not hide in the mountains, nor did they stay away from the people, they lived in the red dust and the masses of people. Because they had their own paradise in their hearts, they also had their own leisurely style of seclusion.
References
- The Book of Sui, Volume 77, “The Forty-second Biography. Hermitage
2、Long Xing Buddhist Chronology, Volume 9
3、Bei Shi (History of the North), Volume 88, “Biography 76
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