Legend has it that there is a river in the underworld called Forget Sichuan, and there is a bridge on the river called Naihe Bridge. There is an earthen terrace called Wangxiangtai. There is an old woman in Wangxiangtai who wants to give passers-by a bowl of soup called Meng Po Tang. There is a stone called Sansheng Stone near Forgotten River, which records your past lives. After crossing Naihe Bridge, you can see the world for the last time on Wangxiangtai. After drinking Meng Po Tang, you will forget all the mundane things in this life and be reborn.
There are many legends about Meng Po, so who is the real identity of Meng Po? What is the formula of Meng Po Tang?
According to Records of the Historian and Yaodian of Shangshu, more than 4,000 years ago, Yao had two eldest daughters, one named and the other named.
When Emperor Yao was old, he also married Huang to Shun. Later, Shun traveled south and died unexpectedly in Cangwu. Two sisters were called to look for him. However, they jumped into the rolling Xiangjiang River and became the goddess in the river.
Later, whenever she went out to travel, the wind and rain would change. The ancients believed that Meng Po was the god in charge of wind and rain, so Meng Po was the daughter of Emperor Yao.
The origin of another kind of Meng Po Tang, as well as the practice and taste of Meng Po Tang, are recorded in the book Jade Biography and Warning.
Meng Po was born in the Western Han Dynasty. When he was a child, he was familiar with the four books and five classics of Confucianism. He began to read Buddhist scriptures when he was young. Her practice has reached the point where she doesn't consider the past and the future. When she was alive, she often advised people to give up killing and be vegetarian. At the age of eighty-one, Ren Yan and Fa remained virgins. People called her "Aunt Meng Po" at that time. Later, she went into the mountains to fix the truth, and she still lived on earth until the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Because some people in the world have a profound sense of truth, they can know the cause and effect of their previous lives, expose secrets, let people in the world recognize their relatives and friends in their previous lives again, and disturb the order of the world.
Therefore, the Jade Emperor ordered Meng Po to be the god of the nether world, to build the soul of a servant who had forgotten Taiwan, and to use the drugs collected from the earthly world to synthesize a liquid medicine like wine, which was divided into five flavors: sweet, bitter, pungent, sour and salty.
All ghosts should drink this soup before being reborn, so that they can forget their past lives!
The forgotten platform is located in the tenth hall of the underworld, outside the six bridges in front of the hall of hades (the tenth hall is dedicated to managing ghosts escorted from various halls, verifying their sins and blessings respectively, and sending them to appropriate places on four continents for reincarnation. Six bridges refer to the six bridges of gold, silver, jade, stone and wood and how to do it. The tall Fiona Fang is ten feet wide and surrounded by 108 corridors. There is a passage to the east, which is only one foot four inches wide. All the ghosts, both men and women, who were sent by order, were given cups in every corridor room to let the ghosts drink this Meng Po soup.
If a devious and cunning ghost refuses to swallow the soup, a hook knife will appear at his feet and trip him up. The ghost will stab him in the throat with a copper tube, making him unable to move after suffering and forcing him to drink the decoction. After drinking Meng Po's soup, the ghosts sent their own ghosts to help them out of the passage and get on the bitter bamboo pontoon tied with hemp rope. Under the bridge is a mountain stream with red water.
Looking forward on the bridge, there are four rows of gold powder on the crimson rock on the other side, which reads: it is easy to be a man, but difficult to be a man; It is not difficult to live in a blessed land, and it is not difficult to speak with your heart.
Just as the ghost was thinking, two tall and big ghosts jumped out of the other bank and dived into the water respectively, making the ghosts on both sides stand unsteadily with fear. A closer look, one is GREAT GHOST, wearing a black hat, decent clothes, cotton-padded jacket, pen and paper in hand, a sharp knife on his shoulder, torture devices hanging from his waist, big round eyes, laughing nonstop. His name is impermanence; The other was covered in dirt, bleeding, wearing a white shirt, holding an abacus, carrying a rice bag on his shoulder, hanging silver paper money on his chest, frowning and sighing. His name is "Death is divided."
Ghosts have been reincarnated into pregnant women's fetuses in various houses according to their own karma. Started a new life.
In the "Meng Po Tang" in Wang Youguang's Interpretation of Wuxia Proverbs, there is also a description that ghosts are drunk with ecstasy soup: after death, they pass through Meng Po Village first. The soldiers escorted the ghost through the walls of Meng Po Village and went to hades for interrogation. After the verdict, record the merits and demerits of a lifetime in the handover book. Every ghost sentenced to reincarnation will come back from Meng Po Zhuang. At the gate of Meng Po Village, an old woman stood there to greet the newcomers and entered the village. Carved beams and painted buildings and stone pillars in the village; Inside, everything is exquisite and gorgeous.
After the couple entered the room, the old lady called three beauties, namely Jiang Meng, Meng Yong and Meng Ge. After the couple took their seats, the three beauties offered tea soup, which was so delicious that the ghosts could not help but swallow it in one gulp. After drinking, I suddenly saw a spoonful of muddy mud at the bottom of the cup. I looked up and found that the original beautiful and charming beauty and old woman had become a frozen skeleton. Walking out of the gate, I saw the original carved beams and painted buildings, all of which were dead wood, as if I were in the middle of nowhere and forgot everything before my death. In panic and pain, he suddenly fell to the ground crying and became a baby who knew nothing.
Therefore, the formula of Meng Po Tang is not only the formula recorded in the Legend of Jade Calendar, but also the legend that it is made of eight kinds of medicinal materials, namely, "one drop of raw tears, two drops of money tears, three drops of bitter tears, four cups of regret tears, five inches of lovesick tears, six inches of sick tears, seven feet of parting tears, and the eighth taste is Meng Po's one drop of heartbreaking tears". This recipe looks beautiful, but it is actually a fabrication, from the movie: beauty is beauty.
According to legend, in fact, the real Meng Po soup, with simple raw materials, is just a bowl of river water under Naihe Bridge, two girls without worries and three roses.
So, has anyone been reborn without drinking Meng Po Tang?
There is a story about Meng Po Zhuang in Volume Eight of the Harmonious Front written by the Qing Dynasty.
Once upon a time, there was a geisha named Lanrui. She fell in love with the scholar Ge Sheng, but because Ge Sheng was poor, she had no money to marry Lanrui. Later, LanRui died of illness, and Ge Sheng was double suicide because he couldn't spend his life with LanRui.
Ge died and went to the underworld. Seeing his innocent death, Yan Luowang sentenced him to reincarnation. When Ge Sheng heard the order, he was ready to be reborn again. Ge Sheng walked alone and came to a hut full of vines. I saw hundreds of men and women scrambling to grab a ladle and hurriedly scoop water into the pot to drink.
Ge Sheng felt thirsty, because he was tired from walking, so he also wanted to drink water from the spoon. At this moment, a woman came out from behind the shed. Ge Sheng looked carefully, and it turned out to be Lanrui. LanRui asked him why he came here, and Ge Sheng told her in detail. After learning this, LanRui leaned into Ge Sheng's ear and whispered, "Don't you know that this is Meng Po Village? Fortunately, Meng Po went to celebrate Mrs Kou's birthday today, and let me take charge of the ladle for the time being. If you drink the ecstasy soup in this ladle like those people, you will forget everything in your life. If you don't drink, you won't forget me and we can continue our friendship. " Ge Sheng listened to LanRui and was reborn without drinking Meng Po Tang.
Well, the story about Meng Po is over. Why do some people say that they have memories of past lives? Is it true that you didn't drink Meng Po Tang? Is forgetting lost? In Buddhism, there is a saying that Araya has hidden functions. The book "Too Modesty" says: "My nature has been aroused, I have been endowed with something special, I am round and wise, I am obviously true, I am obsessed with my career, I have forgotten the past and lost the future, I am worried about it, I am greedy for it, and my heart is constantly changing. namely
In samsara, all beings are part of the Tao, and the Tao is the same body, because everyone has greed, and it is people's own confusion that makes us forget the past lives.