Sima Chengzhen

Sima Chengzhen

Sima Chengzhen (639-735) was born in Wenxian county (now Wenxian County, Henan Province) of Hanoi Prefecture, with the name of Ziwei and the name of Daoyin. Tang Dynasty Taoist, Cao Wei Taichang Sima Kui descendants, Taoist School of the twelfth generation master.

When he was young, he studied Tao well and didn't want to be an official. Pan Shizheng, a Taoist of Songshan Mountain, studied Shangqing Sutra, talisman, Daoyin, baiting and other Taoist skills, and lived in seclusion in Yuxiao peak of Tiantai Mountain. He has a deep literary accomplishment and is known as the ten friends of Xianzong with Chen Ziang, Lu zangyong, song Zhiwen, Wang Shi, Bi Gou, Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei and he Zhizhang.

In the 23rd year of Kaiyuan, he emerged at the age of 96. He pursued Dr. Yin qingguanglu and Mr. Zhengyi.

Life of the characters

Cui Shang of the Tang Dynasty named Sima in his "the preface to the new Tongbai temple in Tiantai Mountain of the Tang Dynasty"

Cheng Zhen was "the descendant of taichangkui, the younger brother of Emperor Xuan of Jin Dynasty". Sima Chengzhen had studied Taoism since he was young and had no intention to be an official. He was taught by Pan Shizheng, a Taoist of Songshan Mountain, and received the methods of Shangqing Scripture, talisman, guidance and baiting. Later, he traveled all over the world and lived in seclusion in Yuxiao peak of Tiantai Mountain, known as "Tiantai baiyunzi". Together with Chen Ziang, Lu zangyong, song Zhiwen, Wang Shi, Bi Gou, Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei and he Zhizhang, they are "ten friends of Xianzong". When Wu Zetian heard his name, she called him to Kyoto, where she personally handed down the imperial edict, praising him for his high practice.

In 711, the second year of Jingyun, Emperor Ruizong of Tang Dynasty, he called into the palace and asked about the number of yin and Yang skills and the management of the state. He answered that the number of yin and Yang skills was "heresy", and the management of the state should be based on "inaction". It is quite in line with the emperor's wishes and is given Baoqin and xiawen. In the ninth year of Kaiyuan (721), Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty sent envoys to welcome them into the palace and became a Taoist emperor. In the 15th year of Kaiyuan (727), he was summoned to the palace and asked to build a balcony view in Wangwushan. According to his wishes, he built a Zhenjun temple in each of the five mountains. He is good at seal script and official script, which is called "golden scissors script". Xuanzong ordered him to write Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu in three kinds of characters, publish the text and engrave it as the stone Sutra. Prime ministers Zhang Jiuling, Zhang Shuo and so on are all teachers. In the 15th year of Kaiyuan, he was called into the capital, died, and after eclosion, he was awarded to doctor Yinqing Guanglu, posthumously known as "Mr. Zhengyi".

Attachment: "Mr. Zhengyi" in the collection of daomen Tongjiao Biyong, and "Mr. Zhenyi" in the whole Tangwen. The former was written earlier, so the editor chose "Mr. Zhengyi". Character thought

Xuanzong came to Hengshan Mountain in the first year of Kaiyuan (713). First, he lived in Baiyun nunnery near Jiuzhen temple, and then built Xi nunnery at the top of zhurong peak. When Wu Zetian heard his name, she called him to Kyoto, where she personally handed down the imperial edict, praising him for his excellent conduct. In 711, the second year of Jingyun reign of Ruizong, he called into the palace and asked about the number of yin and Yang skills and the management of the state. He answered that the number of yin and Yang skills was "heresy", and the management of the state should be based on "Inaction", which was quite in line with the emperor's wishes, and was given Baoqin and xiawen. Later to Nanyue, Jiean Jiuzhen view north. Zhang Jiuling visited it many times.

In the ninth year of Kaiyuan (721), Emperor Xuanzong sent his younger brother, Sima Chengyi, into the palace, ordered him to revise the Tao Te Ching and treated him with courtesy, calling him "Taoist brother".

In the 15th year of Kaiyuan (727), he was summoned to the palace and asked him to build a balcony for living in Wangwu mountain. According to his wishes, he built a Zhenjun temple in each of the five mountains. He is good at calligraphy, seal and official script, which is called "golden scissors". Xuanzong ordered him to write Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu in three kinds of characters, publish the correct sentences and engrave them as stone classics. After eclosion, he gave it to doctor Yin qingguanglu, posthumously known as "Mr. Zhenyi". The imperial edict took his former residence in Nanyue as the view of descending truth, and ordered his disciple Xue Jichang to master it. He ordered Hengzhou to cast a bronze bell, weighing 4000 Jin.

personal works

He has created a set of Taoist theory and a series of principles of truth cultivation, such as "five gradual gates" and "seven steps"

A volume of Ode to taixuan's wonderful Sutra of eliminating disaster and protecting life

A volume of the theory of body and mind sitting and forgetting

Twelve chapters of tianyinzi preface and Xiuzhen secret purport

"Self cultivation and Qi cultivation formula" Volume I

On the essence and meaning of Qi

A volume of Xiuzhen Jingyi zalun

Volume one of Xiuzhen Mysteries

Two volumes of Shangqing Tiandi Palace tujing

"Shangqing Hanxiang Jian Tu" (Volume I)

Lingbao five famous mountains Chaoyi Jing (Volume I)

Collection and clothing of pine leaves and other methods Volume I

Dengzhen series

"The legend of Mr. Zhenbai in Maoshan"

A volume of biography of Suqin

A volume of true praise of Tongbai in the morning of emperor Shi of the Qing Dynasty

Main achievements

Sima Chengzhen, as a great master of the Shangqing school, his most representative work is undoubtedly the theory of Yiqi essence, but this book has little to do with philosophy. In addition, it is customary to place tianyinzi under the name of Sima Chengzhen. In fact, tianyinzi is not written by Sima Chengzhen. Sima Chengzhen's real philosophical works are mainly two books: Ode to Taisheng xuanxiao disaster and life protection and on sitting and forgetting. ①

Before studying Sima Chengzhen's Ode to the book of protecting life, we first discuss the book itself. The full name of "protecting life classic" is "Taisheng xuanxiao disaster protecting life classic", which is abbreviated to "protecting life classic" or "eliminating disaster protecting life classic". It is estimated that it appeared at the end of the northern and Southern Dynasties, not later than the early Tang Dynasty. The thought of "protecting life classic" is not complicated, it should be said that it was produced in the early stage of metaphysics. This sutra is obviously influenced by the Buddhist Prajna theory. It holds that the reason why all living beings can't extricate themselves from the sea of transmigration is that they can't recognize being, nothingness, color and emptiness. Whether or not it comes from Taoism and metaphysics, and Sekong is a Buddhist concept, but here there are two pairs of concepts, namely, harmony and Sekong, nothingness and emptiness, which have the same meaning. It's wrong for all living beings to stick to being / color or nothing / emptiness. It should be realized that being / color, nothingness / emptiness are not absolute and fixed, and the true truth is non existence, non nothingness, non emptiness and non color.

The reason why the book of protecting life came into being relatively early is that its thought is still a little weak, and that the thought of Sima Chengzhen's Ode to protecting life is quite different from that of the book itself. For a long time, because of the wrong positioning of Sima Chengzhen's works, it is concluded that Sima Chengzhen's ideological process has experienced a great turning point from cultivating life / shape to cultivating nature / spirit. The author thinks that this inference is possible, but some of it is too strong. It should be said that the Shangqing school began its ideological reform from Sima Chengzhen, whose thoughts were different from those of his predecessors. However, if we put aside the song of protecting life, all other works of Sima Chengzhen still emphasize the cultivation of form and spirit, and only emphasize the cultivation of both form and spirit in the stone version of zuoyuanlun. This zuoyuanlun should be written in Sima Chengzhen's later years, so we can say that Sima Chengzhen's basic position has not changed all his life. The latter is not involved in the book itself. We can see from Pan Shizheng's daomen Sutra and FA Xiangcheng sequence that the Taoist thought of Maoshan sect of the early Qing Dynasty may mainly come from the new Taoist scriptures of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, such as Benji Sutra and Haikong Sutra. Therefore, the author thinks that Sima Chengzhen's protecting Life Sutra, which is concerned about the heart and mind, should actively absorb other ideological resources to improve the doctrine of the Qing Dynasty when he is young and powerful A work of practice for the purpose is neither an elaborate work in his later years after his ideological transition, nor can it represent his consistent position. Wang Yuanzhi, the ancestor of Sima Chengzhen, inherited two distinct academic traditions: Zang xuanjing's critical thinking of metaphysics and Tao Hongjing's refined form of Shangqing school. Pan Shizheng and Sima Chengzhen mainly inherited the latter, and the only obvious reflection of critical metaphysics in Sima Chengzhen's works is this "Ode to protecting life". The book of protecting life is the most abundant work of Sima Chengzhen's theory, but it is also the one that can't represent him. However, it's not strange that this strange phenomenon appears in the literati like masters of the upper Qing Dynasty who mainly focus on shape cultivation and health preservation. Of course, there is also a possibility that Sima Chengzhen's writing of the Sutra of protecting life may have nothing to do with the emphasis on metaphysics, but is just a personal act of helping Buddhism into Taoism.

In addition to the preface, there are 37 songs in the full text. Only Sima Chengzhen, who has a profound literary accomplishment, can do this. In the ode to protecting life, there is almost no mention of Qi, which Sima Chengzhen attached great importance to. Instead, it mainly discusses the existence and nature of mind. The former makes it the only serious metaphysical work of Sima Chengzhen, while the latter is obviously influenced by the Buddhist thought of Tathagata. Sima Chengzhen said that "emptiness and color are born of each other", so his understanding of emptiness is actually whether there is or not. He didn't have many original ideas about being or not, but he thought that Tao is "being in nothing" and things are "being in nothing", which is quite strange. In fact, that is to say, things are the physical beings produced in Tao, and Tao is the invisible essence that generally lies in things. Generally speaking, Sima Chengzhen's understanding of what is right and wrong and what is wrong and what is wrong and what is not is not deep because the ideal state of Taoism that Sima Chengzhen knew has always been the rise of the body.

The more important problem is the mind. When it comes to sex, Sima Chengzhen's words have always been lax. He said that "Tao and nature are nihilistic". However, according to the Scriptures, the essence of this sentence is to say that nature is nihilistic, not that Tao and nature possessed by human beings are nihilistic. Sima Chengzhen used the words of true nature, positive nature, self nature and spirituality when he talked about sex. He thought that sex is innate to all living beings and must not be contaminated. But the problem is that he never talked about the relationship between sex and Tao. Then there is the heart. Sima Chengzhen thinks that the source of the heart is the Tao. Mind source is the concept of Buddhism, which refers to the original pure heart. Sima Chengzhen's "the Sutra of protecting life" equates the source of mind with Tao because of the influence of the thought of Tathagata. However, it is obviously not advisable to simply copy the Buddhist philosophy, because the heart is an individual, while the Tao is the complete. From the standpoint of Taoist philosophy, the heart and the Tao can not be completely equal in any case. At most, it can only be said that they are similar to the relationship between shangfan and Xiafan in Vedanta philosophy

Chinese PinYin : Si Ma Cheng Zhen