Simple life leads to health

By Xu Lin ( China Daily )

Updated: 2011-05-19

Jia Yongxiang sits on a patio outward his cove home in a Wudang Mountains, Hubei province, on Apr 24. Xu Lin / China Daily

SHIYAN, Hubei – A bee unexpected flies into Jia Yong-xiang’s ear as he is cooking in his unfair kitchen.

The 76-year-old, wearing a well-worn Taoist shawl and dim blue robe, laughs happily and uses a toothpick to assistance chase a bee, quietly observant “please come out”.

The witty bee shortly exits his ear and crawls into his large white brave though severe him during all.

“The bees are my Taoist friends as good as my neighbors,” Jia says in Hubei chapter with a large smile. “There is a elementary Taoist idea: peace between humans and nature.”

Jia has been vital with tens of thousands of bees in a healthy cove for about 14 years in a Wudang Mountains, Central China’s Hubei province. They are among a many dedicated plateau of Taoism, and were finished a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 1994.

Following zigzagging flagstone stairs some-more than 700 years old, one can find Crown Prince Cavern sneaking half approach adult Zhanqi Peak.

Legend has it that Prince Zhenwu used in a cove for decades before apropos imperishable as a Great Emperor Zhenwu, one of a many successful gods in Taoism.

The cove is about 15 block meters and floored with mill slabs, with a tiny artistic mill house around it built in a Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

The statue of a immature Crown Prince is worshipped in a center of a cavern, with Jia’s bed and other elementary seat on a other side.

Outside a cove is a patio with mill balustrades, a place where he cooks, reads and talks with guests.

Jia plays Taoist song and kindly opens his one-meter high wooden cupboard. What catches one’s eyes is a large honeycomb lonesome with bees, occupying a entertain of a cupboard. In a other areas of a sideboard are his bowls, plates and chopsticks.

In a open of 1996, a overflow of bees flew in and finished their home in a cavern. He drilled 4 tiny holes for a bees to fly in and out, though they cite a cracks in a door.

At first, a uninvited guest stung him when he non-stop a cupboard. After that, he played Taoist song whenever he was going to open a door, and gradually a bees became his friends and never stung him.

“They adore a music. we consider they come here to rehearse Taoism with me,” he says.

Jia was a rancher in Xiangyang, Hubei province, and was diagnosed with hepatitis, gastritis, pneumonia and an delirious gall bladder some-more than 20 years ago.

At initial he grew vegetables during a feet of a plateau and for a while lived in a tiny garden building.

“It’s bizarre that we gradually recovered though any treatment, and we have never left behind home,” he says.

He changed to a cove in a 1990s, where he could use Taoism alone, doing imagining and chanting.

Although he asks his family not to come to see him, his younger daughter and daughter-in-law revisit him once a year.

He says he enjoys a pleasing perspective of plateau and trees, that creates him feel one with all things on earth.

Enjoying his elementary life in a remote place, he has never left a area around a cove for years. He gets adult during 5 am, afterwards does his daily morning request and meditation. After breakfast, he cleans a cavern, including a prolonged mill path.

There is no electricity or daub water. He goes to nap early after a unchanging dusk prayer, and uses a candle or a flashlight. On a precipice outward a cove is a prolonged groove, where a rainwater drains into a ancient good on a balcony.

“The Crown Prince Cavern is cold in summer and comfortable in winter, ” he says.

Although a cove is not open to tourists, he receives dozens of visitors each day to share his bargain of Taoism and to see a bees in a cupboard.

They are especially Taoist believers from all over a world, and move him gifts such as fruits.

When people who can’t pronounce Chinese arrive, he usually smiles and kindly flicks dirt off their clothes.

Local Taoists also call on him frequently to offer necessities. He never accepts money, and always gives visitors protecting talismans and snacks. Sometimes he invites them to share a meal.

Listening to a radio and reading are his usually ways to keep in hold with a outward world.

“I allow to newspapers and magazines and review them each day, as I’m endangered about inhabitant affairs,” he says.

He mostly writes his feelings about Taoism, that are especially about dutiful piety, probity and values.

“To use Taoism is really simple, usually be yourself, with a purify demur and justice. It is invalid for those who have finished something bootleg to desire for a gods’ forgiveness,” he says.

“One can use Taoism as prolonged as one has heart and fulfills his duty. For example, a cleaner who cleans restrooms devotedly or an central who serves a people wholeheartedly,” he says.

China Daily

(China Daily 05/19/2011 page2)