Lu Xun's Life Notes

Author: Lu Xun / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: He is a fierce critic and destroyer of the dark, corrupt old forces, and an ardent pursuer and pioneer of the new world of light and truth. A respected, admired, and revered great man, yet an approachable, lovable, and relatable ordinary human being! He is—Lu Xun. Want to read about his life as a teacher, lover, husband, father, and son? This book tells you everything. It is a record of Lu Xun's life, divided into several parts: Childhood Impressions, Study Abroad Years, Student Movement Turmoil, Love Letters from Two Places, Literary Career, Paper Swordplay, and Parting from Life. It reviews every aspect of this literary giant's life, allowing you to experience his life as a teacher, lover, husband, father, and son.
Monks who have taken great vows, advancing from novice to monk, are like laypeople who have undergone the ceremony of adulthood, transitioning from boyhood to adulthood. An adult wishes to "have a wife," and naturally, monks cannot help but think of women. To think that monks only remember Sakyamuni or Maitreya Buddha is a common misconception among those who have not taken a monk as a teacher or become friends with one. There are indeed monks in the temple who are practicing, without women, and who do not eat meat, such as my senior brother. However, they are eccentric, cold, look down on others, and seem perpetually melancholic. If you move their fan or book, they become unhappy, making it difficult to approach them. Therefore, the monks I am familiar with are those who have women, or who openly desire women, eat meat, or openly express a desire to eat meat.
I was not surprised at the third senior brother's desire for women back then, and I knew what kind of woman he idealized. One might think he was interested in nuns, but that is not the case. A relationship between monks and nuns would be even more inconvenient. The woman he desired was a wealthy young lady or a young mistress. The medium for this "longing" or "unrequited love"—what is now called "unrequited love"—was "tying knots."
In my hometown, when wealthy families had funerals, they would always hold ceremonies every seven days. On one of these days, there would be a ritual called "tying and untangling knots." This was because the deceased had inevitably offended people in life, leaving unresolved grievances. Therefore, after death, these grievances had to be untangled for them. The method was to place several dishes before the altar in the evening after the evening prayers. These dishes contained food and flowers, with one dish holding a few coins threaded onto hemp thread or white hair rope, tied into a complex knot like a butterfly or an eight-knot pattern, which was difficult to untangle. Monks would sit around the table, singing and untangling the knots. After untangling them, the money would go to the monks, and the deceased's grievances would be completely resolved.
This practice may seem strange, but everyone did it, and it was not considered unusual. It was likely just another form of "inertia." However, untangling the knots was not always done as the secular world might assume. If a monk found a knot particularly well-made and fell in love with it, or deliberately tied it to be difficult to untangle, causing resentment, he could secretly slip the entire knot into the wide sleeves of his monk's robe, leaving the deceased with unresolved grievances to suffer in hell. These precious knots would then be kept in the temple and admired from time to time, much like how we might also have a preference for the works of female writers.
When admiring the knots, one could not help but think of the person who tied them. Men and servants could not do it; only someone with such skill could. It had to be a young lady or a young mistress. P8-9