Brief introduction of Lin Zhaoen

Lin Zhaoen (A.D. 15 17- A.D. 1598), a native of Stanley Lane, Chengxiang, Putian, Fujian, is also known as "Mr. Sangang" in posthumous title, also known as Longjiang. He was a famous religious scholar and thinker in Ming Dynasty. He founded the trinity religion by preaching the theory of the unity of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and was called "Mr. Three Religions" in the world. Christians respectfully call him "the master of the three religions in Xiawu Taoism". His thoughts not only influenced the folk religious groups in Zhejiang and Fujian in Qing Dynasty, but also spread to Hongkong, Macau, Taiwan Province Province, Southeast Asia and even Europe and America through the spread of immigrants. Overseas Trinity believers set up a shrine to pay homage to Lin Zhaoen, which became a stronghold for Chinese gathering and one of the cohesive forces of local Chinese society.

Lin Zhaoen Yu Ming? In the twelfth year of Zheng De (A.D. 15 17), he was born in an official family. Grandfather Lin was imprisoned for offending eunuch Liu Jin, but he met Wang Yangming and talked with * * * and * * in prison. There are twelve Jinshi in the seven generations of the family, and there are three Jinshi in Lin Zhaoen's contemporary seven generations. Because of his childhood cleverness and the influence of his family environment, he dabbled in schools of thought and Buddhism. In the 13th year of Jiajing (A.D. 1534), he was admitted to Jinshi at the age of 18, and his disciples went to the county to study. He started to become famous and got married in the same year. But his wife died the next year. From the 18th year of Jiajing (A.D. 1539) to the 25th year of Jiajing (A.D. 1546), his grandfather, father and uncle passed away one after another. As the eldest son, he has to bear the responsibility of continuing the family glory, but he has fallen behind in the optimistic voice of everyone. In the same year, he decided to give up the pursuit of fame and fortune and seek the holy way of Confucius from practice. After that, Lin Zhaoen began to devote himself to the study of mind, body and life, and went to various places for advice. He learned from Confucianism, psychology, Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and formed an indissoluble bond with Zhuo Late Chun, a Taoist priest in Putian. He learned from him the inner alchemy and was known as "Zhuo Kuang".

In the 30th year of Jiajing (A.D. 155 1), Lin Zhaoen was thirty-five. He claimed to be "Lu Yu's teacher and taught him the truth". After understanding the three religions, he advocated the establishment of a trinity, and began to set up an altar to preach in Dongshan Overseas Chinese Society (now the Three Religions Temple in Dongyanshan, Chengxiang District), to accept his protege, and to teach Yangming's mind and the three religions' mind, thus forming a school of both. He advocates not believing in ghosts and gods, not talking about monsters, not talking about monsters; It also opposes Confucianism's pursuit of good fortune and avoidance of evil, Taoism's false statement that Dan medicine is immortal, and Buddhism's empty talk about life and death. My friend Huang Zhou took the lead in teaching. Later, relatives, friends and students joined the church one after another, and the number of believers soon exceeded thousands, so he was called "Mr. Three Religions".

In December of the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (AD 1555), Japanese invaders invaded the coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian, causing heavy casualties among residents, and Putian suffered the most. It was the cold winter, the soldiers were short of food, and the rainy night was miserable. Lin Zhaoen organized villagers to donate rice wine and money to boost the morale of the troops. Finally, Qi Xin, the army and the people, fought back the enemy and saved the lives and property of xinghua city and the people. Since then, Japanese pirates have been harassing. In April of the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing (AD 1558), thousands of Japanese invaders raided Xinghua Fucheng, and the defenders were afraid to fight in the encirclement. Just before an army in Mayang, Guangdong Province passed by and entered the city, Lin Zhaoen came forward to lead the squire and Mayang soldiers to make an agreement and invest 1,000 yuan to invite them to participate in the war. Unexpectedly, after repelling the enemy, the army seized the opportunity to rob the people of their property, and the squire was furious and refused to pay the reward. Mayangbing only got Lin Zhaoen's 120, so he arrested him and beat him in the martial arts school, forcing him to take his troops to ask the squire for money for failing to perform the contract. Lin Zhaoen rebuffed, rightfully accused Mayangbing of injustice. When the squires learned about it, they immediately raised a reward to redeem the man, and Lin Zhaoen was released. Afterwards, in order to thank Lin Zhaoen for his righteous act, Xinghua people specially presented him with a lottery ticket with the words "One ticket for the whole city" to show their respect. However, the disaster of the Japanese pirates is getting worse and worse, so Lin Zhaoen put forward "My humble opinion on preventing the Japanese pirates" to the government, suggesting that villagers should be organized to practice in groups as militia to fight against the Japanese pirates. On several occasions, he sold his property, led his disciples to work for the dead, collected and buried more than 30 thousand bones before and after, helped the people and taught people to prevent and control the post-war plague; He also invented a simple and easy "root preparation method" and wrote "Nine Prefaces" to teach people to use Qigong to prevent diseases and keep fit, which was deeply loved by the people.

In the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (AD 1565), Lin Zhaoen began to travel around the world to preach, and in the twelfth year of Wanli (AD 1584), the Trinity Hall was formally established. In the 15th year of Wanli (AD 1587), Fu Luan, a Zhejiang alchemist, drew a picture of the integration of the three religions, declaring: "Almost all the gods saw the Jade Emperor and the Buddha in the sky, and what they did was an image of the integration of the three religions, and even today's teachers of the three religions can preach and worship it. Since then, Lin Zhaoen has been called the trinity leader, and his followers have expanded from scholars to the people, and ancestral temples have been established in various places. He himself divided the original organization into three meetings of heaven, earth and human beings, and formally established it as "Trinity Teaching", taking "Taoism belongs to Confucianism and Confucianism belongs to Confucius" as the teaching purpose, advocating the unity of the three religions, taking Confucian ethics as the foundation, Taoist alchemy as the introduction and Buddhist nirvana as the ultimate principle; It also interprets the word "summer" as meaning "big" and "middle", and thinks that it should be the "noon" luck at the age of 20 to show that its teaching is worldly, and it should be allowed to be held in the middle, so it can be like the afternoon of a day and the summer of 20, so it is also called "summer exchange". Lin Zhaoen preached not only in Fujian, but also in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Nanjing and other places many times. In addition to missionary activities, he also wrote hundreds of thousands of words, which were later compiled by his disciples; His works include thirty-six volumes of Authentic Unity of Three Religions, Notes on Three Religions, Compilation of Three Religions, Unity of Holy Learning, Collection of Three Religions of Confucianism, Collection of Separation of Three Religions, Complete Works of Woods, etc.

In the eighteenth year of Wanli (A.D. 1590) and the twenty-second year (A.D. 1594), there was a severe drought in central Fujian, and the people were in poverty. Lin Zhaoen also sold his property, donated more than 200 taels of silver to help the hungry people in various counties, and supplemented the Longposhe warehouse in Dongxiang with hundreds of stones of rice to help the victims in the city tide over the difficulties and almost exhausted their property. He also donated money to help build pagoda temples and raise funds to build bridges, which made him poor in his later years. On the 14th day of the first month in the 26th year of Wanli (AD 1598), Lin Zhaoen passed away in Putian, with more than 10,000 mourners. Later, his disciples buried him in Shimen Mountain, Houjiao Village, Huating Town, Putian County, which was called "Teacher Wang's Tomb". After Lin Zhaoen's death, believers changed the Dongshan Bridge Society to "Zongkong Temple" to commemorate it, and later called "Linshan Ancestral Hall". He was honored as "Xia Wuni's family", along with Confucius (Confucianism, Zhong Ni's family), Laozi (Taoist Ni's family) and Tathagata (Sakyamuni). The trinity of disciples spread to Fuzhou, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Beijing and other places, and gradually spread to Southeast Asian countries with overseas immigrants; During the Qing Dynasty, it was introduced to Xiangshan area in Hsinchu, Taiwan Province Province. Believers published books such as Lin Zhaoen's Record of the Woods, adapted and pursued various sacrificial ceremonies; In addition, there are three churches or shrines in various places. The main hall is dedicated to the statue of the leader, wearing three cardinal guides, walking five cardinal guides, wearing three cardinal guides and five cardinal guides, and arching Tai Chi with both hands; Some temples worship the "three-in-one" statue of the founder-wearing a Confucian crown to symbolize Confucius, a Taoist crown on his left shoulder to symbolize Laozi, and a Buddhist hat on his right shoulder to symbolize Sakyamuni. According to statistics, in the 38th year of the Republic of China (A.D. 1949), there were 523 Trinity churches with more than 10,000 followers in Putian County. Summer education in Taiwan Province Province is still very active today.