How to grow orchids? Key care points for growing orchids and storing yin

Author: Honglu Xue

  Reading the classics is best in winter, for the mind is focused; reading history is best in summer, for the days are long; reading the philosophers is best in autumn, for their flavor is distinct; reading the collected works is best in spring, for the spirit is expansive. I do not know how Zhang Chao's wondrous mind should be measured. The qi of books aligns with the qi of nature; human bone receives the flesh of heaven and the blood of earth. The ancients' sensibility, the universe within, always makes me close the book and sigh.

Flip through the Book of Rites, and you will know that the spiritual landscape of the Chinese people is beautiful and warm. The distinction between Hua and Yi should be found in the tones of Huangzhong, Dalü, Taicu, and Jiazhong. The ancients used the heavenly stems, earthly branches, and the terms Meng, Zhong, and Ji to depict the changes of heaven, earth, time, and the four seasons. The rise and fall of tones that fall into the ear are truly both refined and elegant. Surely the one character "ritual" can let one feel the pulse of the ancients - ritual toward people, ritual toward things.

In Xianqing Ouji it says that when smelling orchid fragrance, one should practice the method of advancing and retreating. This is clearly the splashing of ritual, the water in the pure bottle, washing away the dust of the heart, reducing coarse warmth, so that one may fold that charm and store that fragrance. The ritual of form, the cultivation of the heart, the bearing of classical grace, are not in the false images of the digital age, nor in the clamor of survival-based pleasure, but in Daiyu burying peach blossoms, in that tenderness that makes one's heart ache slightly, crossing the fences of the mortal world, just like the lotus pod in the mud, lifting up half a portion of true fragrance, half a portion of clear roundness.

The character for "person" was once revolutionarily explained as one log cannot support alone, small cliques, small groups, huddling together for warmth, and being happy together. Yet masters at the peak are always solitary, and the founding ancestors of thought also have no peers, otherwise how could later comers bow in worship? The character for "person" - what matters is to hold oneself up, one left-falling stroke and one right-falling stroke, one yin and one yang. People today only know excess yang and do not know how to store yin.

   Growing orchids requires the ability to store yin, and people today do not understand this either, so "scientism," "sociological standpoint," and "economic perspective" prevail, and orchid culture is often simplified to a theory of moral value. In one Analects, Confucius discusses principles but does not discuss the Dao. The Master sighed, "If one hears the Dao in the morning, one may die content in the evening." It can be seen that although the Master asked Lao Dan about the Dao, in the end he was still a breath short of the Dao.

In cultivating the body and conducting oneself in the world, storing yin is the essential point. Among the five phases, the kidney is water and belongs to yin. In ancient times, Qibo once spoke with the Yellow Emperor about the profound meaning of cultivating the body and storing yin. Later, Lord Wenzheng, who built extraordinary achievements, told his ninth brother that in repeated defeats and battles, stabilizing the mind and spirit depended on the method of quiet sitting. This saying indeed deeply grasped the subtle truth of storing yin. As a man who achieved the three completions of establishing virtue, establishing merit, and establishing words, his daily practice was quiet sitting to store yin. In the Republic of China period, when Hu Lancheng saw his father tending flowers and plants in the garden, he concluded, "Grief, resentment, bitterness, and joy must come out from here; only then does life have weight." Lancheng could be counted as half a pest and half a bodhisattva; all his life he dealt with people and ghosts, always walking on cliffs and precipices. Without some real skill, how could Zhang Ailing, this supremely intelligent woman, have fallen in love with him?

The Dao cannot be structured, nor can it be deconstructed. The empty pool reflects the moon, above and below perfectly clear.

The Dao also has no form. Birds sing at the pearl screen, flowers fall by themselves - perfect enlightenment.