What is the significance of taking a bath? What is the significance of taking a bath?

Lead: What is the meaning of taking a bath? I think everyone is familiar with it. In layman's terms, it is to take a bath. But when bathing is associated with religious ceremonies, it has different meanings. Today, let's take a look at the meaning of the term bathing in the Old Yellow Calendar. In fact, in religious activities, bathing is not just a category of cleaning the body.

Gregory term: What does it mean to take a bath?

Bathing is to clean your body when you pray or make a wish.

Taoist fast bath

Taoism pays special attention to the practice of personal physical and mental cleanliness before participating in religious activities, and believes that fasting and strictness are bridges connecting gods and saints. Almost all Taoist classics have this admonition: fasting and bathing is the only way to open the classics.

Take a bath and purify yourself.

Believers should bathe themselves before coming to the temple to participate in religious activities. "Bathing Body and Mind Classic" says: "Those who are clean in the bath are open-minded, and those who are clean outside the bath are clean." Taoist bathing requires people to wash away the dirt on their bodies, that is, to wash away themselves; Also ask people to wash away the dirt in their hearts, that is, wash their hearts. The dirt on the body is easy to wash off, but how to wash the dirt on the mind? "Chang Jing Qing Jing" says: "I can always express my desire and decide my heart, clear my heart and clear my mind." We get rid of all kinds of bad desires in our hearts, which is to wash our hearts. After sincere practice, my mind is bright, Shen Yuan hides it in it, and my body and mind are peaceful. In this way, when we participate in religious activities, we can communicate with God, so as to eliminate disasters and pray for blessings. Bathing is sometimes called "fragrant soup bath", which means adding "five spices" to the bath water, each with its own special function. "Bathing Body and Mind Sutra" said: "Those who have five fragrances can go to the three corpses as soon as they use angelica dahurica; Both kinds of peach skin can ward off evil spirits; The cypress leaves of the three can drop the true fairy; The four are Lingling, which can gather spiritual saints; Five woody plants can eliminate pollution and call for truth. " This passage makes the role of five spices very clear. Taking a bath with five spices can play a magical role in eliminating evil spirits, three corpses, removing bad breath and calling true spirits. Spiced spices can be bought in Chinese medicine shops. If believers have the conditions to bathe in fragrant soup at home, they will naturally win.

Fasting and bathing is a self-purification procedure for believers to participate in religious activities in the palace. It seems simple, but in fact it is important, and it is not easy to do it well. Whether fasting and bathing are sincere or not is related to communication with the gods and whether they can sense the revelation of the gods, so we should pay special attention to it. In addition, married couples should stop having sex the day before attending religious activities, wear clean clothes, and drinkers should give up drinking.

Do not eat meat

The so-called vegetarian fasting means not eating anything fishy in your diet before attending religious activities. Meat refers to radish, garlic, onion (fire onion), Brassica (rape), coriander (Hu Cai) and other plants. It is also called "Five Xin". Don't eat these things because eating them raw will make people angry, and eating them cooked will encourage people's desires, and these things are very pungent and will make people's blood turbid, so as not to offend the gods, so don't eat them. Fishy refers to the meat and blood of all animals, including milk fat and eggs. Don't eat fishy things because "the road is good and God will live well", and don't eat fishy things to encourage their sympathy. In addition, many animals have spirituality, such as turtles and snakes, which have become the image of Xuanwu in the north. Carp and eel know the principle of war, the merits of cattle, the righteousness of dogs, the orders of geese, the ability to abstain from eating, and they should be in harmony. Lent is an act of showing respect for ghosts and gods, and its forms include: not eating meat or drinking, taking a bath, wearing clean clothes, breaking sexual intercourse and so on. These sacrificial fasts are all external forms of fasting, and more importantly, "heart fasting" requires people to be pure and abstinent. Taoists talk about thousands of laws, and cultivating the mind is the best.

Taoism is especially strict with Taoist fasting practice. There are orthodox schools and quanzhen schools in Taoism. Although Zhengyi can eat meat and fishy things when not holding religious activities, there is a rule of "four no-eating". When holding religious activities, the requirements of righteousness and Quanzhen fasting are the same. Quanzhen Taoist priests, especially those who were banned by the three altars, fasted more strictly. If you fast all the year round, many people can't do it, especially those who practice at home. Sometimes it is inconvenient or because of physical needs. Therefore, the founder opened a convenient method, that is, fasting strictly before and during religious activities, or fasting on certain special days, which also has incredible merits and can be rewarded. For example, "Sanyuanzhai", that is, the 15th day of the first month, the 15th day of July and the 15th day of October in the lunar calendar, is a fast day in Shangyuan, Zhongyuan and Xia Yuan. These three auspicious days are the Christmas of the heavenly officials, the local officials and the water officials respectively, and they are good opportunities to pray for blessings, forgive sins and relieve Eritrea. Another example is "Geng Shen Zhai" and "Jia Zi Zhai", which are the fasting day of Geng Shen and Jia Zi Day of "Sixty Flowers" respectively. These two days are the days when the chef says that people are guilty and blessed. Fighting is really bad. Another example is "fasting at the core monument of life", that is, fasting is held on a person's birthday, because when a person is born, that is, the day when his mother suffers, he will express his gratitude through fasting, so that his parents can also prolong their lives through fasting. Ten fasting days are: the first day, the eighth day, the fourteenth day, the fifteenth day, the eighteenth day, the twenty-third day, the twenty-fourth day, the twenty-eighth day and the thirtieth day of each month (the twenty-seventh day is taken when the month is small). Eight fasting days: beginning of spring Day, Equinox, Lixia Day, Summer solstice, beginning of autumn Day, Equinox, Lidong Day and Winter solstice. Four-day fast: the first day of the first month, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October. In addition, Christmas is also Lent Day. There are many Lent festivals, so I won't list them one by one. These fasting days are for understanding grievances, eliminating sins, praying for blessings, avoiding disasters, saving lives and prolonging life.

If you want to find out more about the explanation of almanac terms, please click on the explanation of almanac terms.