天下道教第一坛

       西汉文帝时期，朝廷在子午谷内随山就势修建了一座祭祀天神的坛，名为玄都坛。此坛高海拔880米，经卫星定位仪进行方位测量，与渭北天齐坑（大地原点）处于同一条直线上，天齐坑-长安城-子午谷口为汉代长安的一条建筑基线，天齐坑中的天齐祠和子午谷口的某一古遗址为朝廷的礼制建筑。最为神奇的是从侧面眺望玄都坛，是一幅天然的老子论道图。

    金仙观

        唐朝是中国道教活动的高峰期，子午谷内的道教活动也十分兴盛。晚唐留学长安的新罗人金可记放弃仕进，隐居这里，为韩国修道第一人，后羽化于谷内，金仙观由此得名。崔志远与金可记同时期修道，他成功的将中国道教引入韩国，所以金仙观又被冠以韩国道教祖庭。“玄都坛下悟金仙”使金仙观香火旺盛，道教文化得以传承

    天下道教第一坛

       西汉文帝时期，朝廷在子午谷内随山就势修建了一座祭祀天神的坛，名为玄都坛。此坛高海拔880米，经卫星定位仪进行方位测量，与渭北天齐坑（大地原点）处于同一条直线上，天齐坑-长安城-子午谷口为汉代长安的一条建筑基线，天齐坑中的天齐祠和子午谷口的某一古遗址为朝廷的礼制建筑。最为神奇的是从侧面眺望玄都坛，是一幅天然的老子论道图。

    金仙观

        唐朝是中国道教活动的高峰期，子午谷内的道教活动也十分兴盛。晚唐留学长安的新罗人金可记放弃仕进，隐居这里，为韩国修道第一人，后羽化于谷内，金仙观由此得名。崔志远与金可记同时期修道，他成功的将中国道教引入韩国，所以金仙观又被冠以韩国道教祖庭。“玄都坛下悟金仙”使金仙观香火旺盛，道教文化得以传承

2009-04-15

Liu Shitian's Gratefulness for Leigutai’s blessings

My daoist uncle Liu Shitian, asked me to go with him for a few days to Leigutai. He was ordained a priest 20 years ago by his master Liu Xingdi in this temple and although he lived there only for one year he is still very fond of the place “I have visited most temples of China, but I still think that Leigutai is the best place I have ever been ! You should go and practice the dao there; I will renovate it and next year there will be a confortable room there for you. Do you think you could stay there for one year?” did he ask me. “well, I did stay there for 2 weeks two years ago; I don’t mind the fact that there is no electricity, no running water and windows made of plastic bags…but I find it difficult to cope with the rats running on my bed at night; however I think that the most difficult part would be to cope with the cold during winter (altitude of 1800m)” Did I reply. “Well let’s go there and see how we can renovate the place” did he conclude. And off, we left Xian early in the morning and took with us an electricity company director and his engineer, and an architect. The cars were packed with blankets as liu shitian had planned that we would all stay there overnight so that people would get a feeling on how magic was the place. Mr Ma, looking at me with a malicious smile adding “we have a tent in the boot to camp outside under the stars…see Chinese people are romantic also !”. we got to the bottom of mountains after a 5 hours drive;5 hours mostly spent in an infinite succession of tunnels as we had to cross the zhongshan mountains. From the bottom it then took us about 1h to get to the temple as the road newly cut through the mountain was only a rough rocky track. We arrived at the temple just while some farmers of the area were starting to unload the part of the incense burner dispatched on 3 trucks. The incense burner bought by Liu Shitian is made of bronze and the heaviest part is about 1 ton. One week earlier Liu ShiTian had also offered leigutai a deities statue made of bronze, probably about the same weight of the incense burner. Those gifts although beautiful were heavy on the farmers shoulders. About a dozain of them, ropes in their hands were turning around the parts, wondering how on hell they would get the heaviest to the top of the mountain. We left them to it and took on foot the narrow path leading to the bottom part of the temple were the priests live. The abbot, Zheng Xinde was waiting for us and offered a cup of the local tea. Zheng Xinde always a smile on his face and sparkling eyes like he was always about to crack a joke, although he never does. I call him Shiye (grand master) and bow three times on the floor every time I meet him, although he always stops me after the first one.

The inhabitants of the temple were all there, wearing dirty clothes; that is two deaf-mute simple minded men who do the chores, a simple minded woman with a big wine stain on her face and no teeth who does the cooking, and my sifu’s brother who is learning the chanting. “nowadays, people can’t cope with such harsh living conditions and the new generation of priests do not accept to live here anymore; 20 years ago there was about 20 priests, all of them very educated and 6 young priests like me” commented Liu Shitian.

We then went to bow to the immortals, starting at the bottom of the mountains and making slowly our way up to the top were stands the main deity “zhen wu dadi” the real warrior. It takes a 15 minutes walk up the stairs amongst the clouds and the pine trees. The top….ahhh the top; once one gets there if he does not get a feel of the magic of the place, then he will never feel the magic anywhere else!

Outside the entrance to the temple, under a red tent was proudly standing the real warrior bronze statue offered by Liushitian…well a bit homeless though…as it happened that the door was too small to install the statue inside…problem that everybody took immediately at heart and a brainstorming session was improvised with the engineer and the architect. After much measurements and observation everybody arrived at the conclusion that enlarging the door would probably make the old building collapse; and if not would it be appropriate to place the new statue in front of the old one? Well as always in leigutai, the decision was left to the deity; Liu Shitian, then kneeled in front of the old statue and throwing 2 pieces of wood on the floor asked zhenwu dadi his advice on the matter; according to the way the two pieces of wood felt onto the floor it was concluded that the deity agreed to the entrance being enlarged and the new statue could be put in front of the old one. The group spend the rest of the afternoon planning the renovation in a way that the place would keep his magical atmosphere and the fengshui would still be as harmonious as it has been for the last 400 years. Electricity was at the heart of the problem; how one does building works without electricity nowadays? The electricity engineer concluded that it would be impossible to get wires up here and that the only way was solar and wind generated electricity, a field in which his company is leader in. The director agreed to furnish and install everything for free as a donation to the temple. I could not help thinking about the mastery and strength of people of ancient times who built monasteries on the cliffs of huashan and wudangshan. Once the decision made, they left us to go back to xian and only five of us stayed overnight.

We spent the evening drinking tea, sitting around some burning coals placed in a hole in the floor, chatting about destiny and life…our nose stuff with carbon monoxide.. At midnight, we dropped the idea of setting up the tent as the wind was blowing outside and the abbot prepared some rooms for us. I took my candle entered the temple were the oil lamp was always burning, passed in front of the Linguan (the guardian god) and the god of the medicine and there was my room, filled with the smell of incense; A tiny wooden room exactly as it was 400 years ago; placed behind the medicine god and in front of the jade emperor….”tonight I will sleep amongst the immortals…and the rats whose little paws were racking against the ceiling”. Liushi Tian woke us up at 6 am :“I want you to see the passing of the clouds in the valley at sunrise..”. He then took some incense and inaugurated the incense burner which did not make it to the top at the end, but was placed at the bottom after much effort. We then made our way up amongst the clouds while the sun was rising. We spent one hour watching the dance of the clouds which were slowing filling up the valley. After breakfast, we went to the dragon’s head near my grand grand master’s grave. We sat there looking at the dragon’s mouth, a rock whose shape ..well you guess what..looks like a dragon’s mouth. Liu shitian recollected his memories and told us many stories on how he used to climb up there…nostalgia maybe? Liushitian leads such a different life now. Always with a mobile phone in his right hand and a suitcase in the left one, ever going to a meeting or coming from one. Born in a poor family living in the mountains near leigutai he decided to become a priest at 16 years old and on his own made his way up to leigutai. From there he was then sent to the eight immortals temple in Xian and then to the daoist studies college in Beijing white cloud temple. As a student of Min Zhiting (China daoist association chairman) he got the opportunity to meet Mr Yan, a rich Taiwanese who was looking for an abbot to manage the temple he wanted to build in Shaanxi Lintong; at 37 years old, Liu Shitian is now abbot of the two biggest temples in the north west of china: Ming Sheng gong and Xian city god temple; he created a daoist music orchestra which performs around the world, publishes the first daoist magazine ..etc. In brief, he “has made it’ and lives the life of a powerful, rich and busy man. The incense burner, the bronze statue and his plan to rebuild Leigutai is it not a good way of thanking the deity for all his blessings? As always in Leigutai, one should ask the real warrior what he thinks of all of this…we did not need to kneel and use the two pieces of wood to get the answer…one of our tyre got blown up by a sharp stone as soon as we got to the car to get back to xian “that’s a hint; Leigutai likes us and wants to keep us here” told me Mr ma, a specialist of the iching”..well what worries me is that it blew exactly while Liushitian was once more asking me when I would go and spend a year or two in Leigutai…oups..was that a hint ?