Jiuhua Fu · 99 Reasons to Understand Mount Jiuhua’s Great Vow and Sacred Peak

Scroll I Ninety-Nine Peaks The peaks do not compete; people do

01Ninety-nine peaks, each with its own name — never repeated.
02Shiwang Peak rises 1,344.4 m, the highest in southern Anhui. Climbing is not conquest — it is seeing how small you are.
03Tiantai at dawn — the moment the sun floats up out of a sea of clouds.
04Lotus Peak’s nine petals give the 'Lotus Buddha Land' its name.
05Tianzhu Peak stands alone, propping the sky like a stick of incense the earth lit.
06Nine-Child Peak — the mountain’s earliest name, 'Nine-Child Mountain', carved into it.
07Guanyin, Jade Screen, Eagle-Crawling-Cliff — the peak names are poems in themselves.
08One kasaya covering all ninety-nine peaks: the grandest act of alms-seeking on this mountain.
09No peak is the protagonist — none higher than another. Like all living beings.
10At the summit you understand: the mountain never competed for height.
11Only after climbing them do you see: looking down and looking up are the same gesture.

Scroll II Sea of Clouds Clouds know no one, yet return every year

12The sea of clouds visits over two hundred days a year — more punctual than anyone.
13At Tiantai the sunrise is not raised; it is born from the cloud.
14At Huatai’s strange rocks, once mist passes, the stones seem to start walking.
15Rime ice wraps the temples — winter Jiuhua is ink-wash monochrome.
16In spring azaleas blaze against the old temples, reddening the whole mountain.
17When rain approaches, cloud rises from underfoot and you walk above it.
18Cloud Gorge, a thread of sky — look up and see only one line of light.
19Three hundred thousand mu of bamboo at Minyuan; wind passing sounds like monks chanting.
20The Phoenix Pine is fourteen hundred years old and still stretching.
21At night, push the window open: the stars hang absurdly low, as if lowered for you.
22The cloud does not know you, yet year after year remembers the way.

Scroll III Ancient Temples Temples follow the mountain; the mountain lives through them

23Huacheng Temple, the founding monastery — everything began here.
24The Flesh-Body Precious Hall, Jin Dizang’s stupa — the heart of the whole mountain.
25Eighty-one steps before the hall; one bow per step — a scripture written by the body.
26Century Palace, named for the monk Wuxia who lived to 126: a temple named after one man’s lifespan.
27At Qiyuan Temple’s dawn liturgy, when the chant begins, stray thoughts fall to the floor.
28Nine national-protected, thirty province-protected temples: numbers are for outsiders; the shaft of light inside is for you.
29Ninety-nine ancient temples built along the mountain — never contending with it for land.
30The 99-metre bronze Dizang statue, taking the meaning 'ninety-nine returning to one'.
31Morning bell and evening drum — this mountain’s heartbeat.
32Rest in a temple and someone silently refills your tea.
33Incense unbroken for a thousand years; faith never clocks off.

Scroll IV The Great Vow He placed his own buddhahood last

34Of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains, the only bodhimaṇḍa of Dizang.
35'Not until hell is empty will I become a buddha' — the heaviest promise ever made.
36'Only when all beings are delivered do I attain bodhi' — he put himself last.
37Kim Gyo-gak, a Silla prince, renounced his throne at 24 and crossed the sea to China.
38He lived in rock and ate earth for seventy-five years without descending — guarding not a mountain, but an unfinished sentence.
39He passed at 99; opened the jar three years later, face intact — revered as Dizang incarnate.
40Min Gong gave the mountain; father and son both converted, still standing at the bodhisattva’s side.
41Dizang is the bodhisattva of great filial piety; Jiuhua is the field of merit for repayment.
42Most who come here are not praying for themselves.
43Lighting incense for your parents says more than any words could.
44You need not believe in Buddhism — but it is hard not to be moved by a vow.

Scroll V The Poet Immortal Ten characters named a mountain

45Before Li Bai it was Nine-Child Mountain; after Li Bai it became Jiuhua.
46'From subtle being two ethers part; the numinous mountain opens nine blossoms' — ten characters named a mountain.
47'The sky-river hangs green water; nine hibiscus rise in splendour' — he wrote the mountain as a flower.
48Li Bai even built a study hall beside Huacheng Temple, intending to settle there.
49Poets through the ages left over five hundred poems and essays here.
50One line of poetry can rename a mountain — that is the weight of the Chinese language.
51Mountain names are poetry; temple names are scripture; peak names are painting.
52Qingyang tune, one ancestor of Peking opera, sang out from the foot of this mountain.
53Nuo opera, a living fossil of theatre, still performed today.
54Monks farm and farmers chant: this mountain never decided who is a monastic.
55A poem has lived thirteen hundred years and the mountain still waits for your next line.

Scroll VI The Incorrupt Body The mountain is silent, yet leaves the loudest evidence

56Fifteen incorrupt bodies — modern life science has yet to explain them.
57Monk Wuxia, 126, copied sutras in his own blood for twenty-eight years — until blood and ink were indistinguishable.
58Monk Daxing seemed mad in life, yet everything he said was sound: 'Good people, good to yourself; bad people, bad to yourself.'
59Monk Daxing passed at 91; when the jar opened, his joints sounded — as if someone inside still struck the wooden fish.
60Incorruptibility is not legend here; it is something this mountain does repeatedly.
61At the end of science, Jiuhua leaves a door open.
62You need not understand everything — only revere.
63One man sat his whole life into a jar, so others might believe a vow is real.
64Before the Flesh-Body Hall, pilgrims do not speak. They simply kneel.
65Fifteen bodies are fifteen gentle refutations of death.
66The mountain does not speak, yet it left the loudest evidence.

Scroll VII Zen Living Slowness is the rarest luxury here

67A vegetarian meal costs thirty to fifty yuan; even the bowl bottom is clean.
68Copying sutras stroke by stroke — and the mind slows down.
69A cup of high-mountain tea with the wind: enough for a whole afternoon.
70Pick tea, roll incense with the monks — be a mountain dweller for half a day.
71The paths are built gently — an eighty-year-old grandmother and a five-year-old can reach the same sea of clouds.
72Tired? Step into a temple. No ticket, no purchase. Sit, and someone asks where you come from.
73At dawn, pine wind and chanting resonate — better than any alarm.
74At dusk the sunset reddens Tiantai; the golden roof seems to burn.
75Nights at the mountain lodgings: you can see the Milky Way.
76No hawking loudspeakers here, only the dawn bell: zen is not performance, it is life itself.
77Slow down and talk with yourself — the most expensive thing in the city, free here.

Scroll VIII Mountain Flavours Each land nourishes its own

78North has Changbai ginseng; south has Jiuhua Solomon’s seal.
79Jiuhua Solomon’s seal — national geographical indication: a mountain hid its best in a root.
80Steamed and sun-dried nine times over forty-nine days — a herb cooked into food.
81Solomon’s-seal and sesame balls, one bite each — Jiuhua you can take away.
82Solomon’s-seal tea, wine, cake — the sweetness of a mountain.
83The Ming-dynasty Jiuhua Mountain Gazette: 'Though found everywhere, only Jiuhua’s is best.'
84With no grain in the mountain, Jin Dizang ate Solomon’s seal to survive — a bodhisattva ate this herb.
85Rock ear, selenium-rich tea — mountain flavours are honest.
86The plainness of a vegetarian meal is something you miss afterwards.
87Bringing home a jar of Solomon’s seal is the simplest way to care for your parents.
88Each land nourishes its own: the jar you carry away is a small piece of this mountain.

Scroll IX The Returning Heart Ninety-nine reasons, converging on one word

89Ninety-nine peaks, ninety-nine reasons — all in the end return to one.
90Some come to make a vow, some to repay one. The mountain remembers both.
91Many had no plan, yet had already seen these stone steps in a dream.
92A drifting heart only lands the moment it touches the mountain steps.
93Go at least once in a life — not for the scenery, but to be settled.
94For parents, for children, for the 'peace' unspoken for so long.
95Going up is keeping an appointment; coming down means carrying something back.
96Ninety-nine return to one: ninety-nine reasons are really just one word.
97Go is a word of moving forward; return is a word of coming home.
98The mountain has always been here, waiting for you to finally have time.
99 The 99th reason is left for you to write.

One Thought Arises — Go to Jiuhua

This mountain arranged everything into ninety-nine

99 Reasons to Understand Mount Jiuhua’s Great Vow and Sacred Peak

My Jiuhua Reason

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