Why is Taoist culture revived among Han Chinese youths?

In the past two years, Taoist culture seems to have been revived among the youth.

·From the UP master of station B, Wudang Hu Weizhe

When it comes to Taoism, the first impression of most people is the old man with immortal style. But with the development of the times, the Taoists also kept pace with the times.

At station B, there are even Taoists playing ukulele and bass.

·From station B UP master Taoist playing guitar

Whether it is a working youth who is completely lying flat, or a senior high school student who has been fighting for a hundred days, more and more people are studying Taoist culture.

For example, in Sanhe Great God Bar, some people shared that they suddenly became enlightened in the process of wandering. Bigu and cultivation gave him the highest emancipation of his mind.

And this made him find the pursuit of life from the confused days.

In the Xiu Xian bar, there are also teenage students who are full of anticipation for the cyber apprenticeship.

In their view, cultivating immortals can not only gain various magical powers, but also grow taller, look better, and improve IQ.

In order to become smarter, some students facing exams or with unsatisfactory grades even started to make their own alchemy ideas.

·It's really alchemy

They delved into ancient books, hoping to reproduce the real "panacea".

· There are still people asking questions on Baidu Ask Doctor

Not only the examples mentioned above, Taoist culture has been unknowingly, quietly popular.

The 2018 white paper on religion shows that there are nearly 200 million people in China with religious beliefs. However, because Taoism does not have strict admission procedures and is highly integrated with folk customs, it is difficult to count how many Taoists there are in China.

But what we can be sure of is that a considerable number of young people are already studying Taoist culture.

·Two Taoist cultural exchange groups, the post-zero generation is the mainstream crowd

Even on Xiaohongshu, some young people have started to practice the Quanzhen Longmen School's health qigong "King Kong Longevity Gong".

Some people shared that after training, the complexion is radiant, not only the skin has improved, but also the bags under the eyes have become much smaller.

Others shared that practicing not only makes the body healthier, but also nourishes yin and strengthens yang.

Not only that, with the help of several Taoist priests and friends, I also divided the young people who respect Taoism into four categories.

The first category is to learn the medical culture in it.

The second category is to revive the excellent traditional Chinese culture.

The third category is simply thinking that Taoism is cool. In their view, Taoism can not only get more attention, but also can become the capital of picking up girls and honey.

The fourth category is those young people who are out of tune with society and feel empty. These are also the most numerous.

These young people who believe in Taoism also have different cultivation methods.

Some people shunned the world to cultivate, and they supported each other with practitioners from different places on Zhongnan Mountain, and reported to the group to keep warm.

·A documentary documenting the life of a hermit in Zhongnan Mountain

There are also people who seek orthodoxy and go to Taoist academies or Taoist temples to study.

According to our friend in the editorial department, Taoist Master Zhang Zhizhen of the Quanzhen School, there are many disciples of the post-00s generation in his Taoist college.

They would get up at five in the morning to do morning classes and practice exercises with the Taoist priests, day after day.

The five arts of Xuanmen, Taoist fasting, calligraphy and painting, and even an introduction to Chinese culture and Taoist martial arts are all compulsory courses for them. In their spare time, they also play basketball, watch dramas, and even play mobile games.

In addition to these young people who have entered the meditation practice, there are also some people who are unable to cultivate for a long time due to geographical factors and time problems, and can only explore on their own.

They study the Taoist Tibetans, hoping to learn the basics on their own.

These people are usually attracted by film and television works such as "Under One Person", or short videos of Taoist culture. They gather on social platforms such as QQ groups, Weibo topics and Tieba to exchange experiences and share knowledge with each other.

· Many Taoists and laymen have short video platform accounts

Electronic versions of ancient Taoist books can be found in most Taoist group documents.

From feng shui secrets to Zhouyi numerology, from divination rituals to traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture, everything is available.

A large part of these ancient books are manuscripts of later generations, and the quality is uneven, and the handwriting is also scribbled and indistinct. If you want to keep watching and learn something, you need a lot of patience in addition to enthusiasm.

For example, a book called "Folk Shangliang Surrounding the Liangliang" has only two pages after opening the document, and it records a piece of jingle that has been circulating for hundreds of years.

Another book titled "Maoshan Xuanyingtang Zhu Family Teaching Esoteric Law Book" looks relatively clear.

But many professionals who read the book say it's a hodgepodge of plagiarism from multiple genres, and that much of it is wrong.

There are also many books from Taiwan Province in the 1980s called "The Secret Biography of Maoshan XX".

There are various spells recorded here, but most of them are related to the digging of other people's ancestral graves, and it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false.

Due to the unknown origin of many Taoist books circulating on the Internet and the limitations of self-study, many seemingly magical things happened to these young practitioners.

For example, in order to obtain the lightning strike wood with the power of "Sky Thunder", some people want to try to induce lightning by artificial methods.

What's more, try to give spiritual power to the wooden sword through high-voltage wires.

If artificial lightning is still theoretically correct, then using high-voltage wires is pure nonsense.

Doing so is not only a safety hazard, but also ineffective.

·Man-made lightning strikes on online shopping platforms

Some people are asking in the post bar, what is the importance of the brush for drawing characters?

A netizen replied: If you want the talisman to be effective, you have to open it.

How to start the edict?

This netizen posted a link.

· How to start the order in the link

"Lonely tomb", "Evening", "Burning paper", "Brush inserted into the grave", these descriptions look like scenes from horror movies.

In order to verify the authenticity, I specifically asked two Quanzhen factions and a Taoist priest from the Tianshi Mansion.

One of them told me that he went to check it and thought that this statement seemed to come from an online novel. In the novel, it was also written that stripping the body of a dead man’s clothes can ward off evil spirits. It’s not reliable.

Another told me that it is necessary to set up an altar to invite the gods, and it is pure nonsense to go to the grave to do things.

Another said he wasn't sure, but he hadn't heard of it anyway.

· There are also many young people commenting on the Taoist songs of NetEase Cloud Music

Not only magical tools and spells, but also search with keywords such as "Inner Alchemy", "Qi Practice" and "Cultivation", and you will find that many young people are teaching themselves how to become immortals.

In order to obtain supernatural powers such as leaving the body, telepathy, and remote viewing, some young people post online for help in practicing the Qi method.

And some people who call themselves "real people" will use the number of half moon marks as the basis for judging the quality of "spiritual roots".

Half moon marks are not enough, do not teach!

· Daoist Zhang Zhizhen said it was a bit ridiculous

Not only that, there are many people discussing everything related to Taoism on the Internet.

For example, someone asked if the spell in the movie "Spell" is real.

There are also people who want to verify whether the video of the robbery that has been circulated on the Internet over the years is true or not.

The so-called "Oriental Pearl Tribulation Incident" aroused my curiosity, I went to investigate briefly, and found this absurd original video.

Everyone who comes to learn Taoism has different goals. Some people are interested in magic and feng shui, some people want to learn Chinese medicine, and some people want to revive traditional culture.

Of course there are also people who study Tao just to try to find the meaning of life.

In the 2018 documentary "Sanhe Youth Cruel Story · Shenzhen gig workers" documentary filmed by Japan's NHK, there is a "hanging" Taoist priest.

There was no way out for him to return to his hometown and no future in Shenzhen. Due to the confusion in his life, he eventually became a Taoist priest.

However, this did not change his life in any way.

In Sanhe Dashen's post bar, some people say that his name is Chen Yong, his brain is not very good, and he wears a padded jacket in summer; some people say that he saw him sleeping in the underground of Longhua bus station one night, hungry like a dog; Already dead, only the Taoist image in the documentary remains.

However, although many young people have not fallen to the state of Sanhe, the confusion is indeed similar.

The ideal life gradually fades away with the changes of the times, as if it is out of reach; the voices from all directions persuade people to turn inward and linger.

All these make young people feel confused, and Taoist culture has become an attempt for them to find the meaning of life and dispel the confusion.

Open various social software, and you can see some confused young people complaining about life.

Living in this world, buying a house, buying a car, getting married and having children are all agreed upon rules.

The ever-increasing housing prices and prices, the unfinished 996 jobs, and the unattainable dreams have all become a burden that crushes young people.

They are gradually alienated and begin to feel out of tune with society.

Internet words such as "lay flat", "putting rotten" and "touching fish" used to relieve environmental pressure have emerged in an endless stream in the past two years.

The sense of unease brought about by the pressure of survival has also been magnified infinitely because of the epidemic.

Some young people, who have just gone from the campus to the society, are defeated by the obstacles and foreseeable difficulties in front of them.

In order to dispel this unease and confusion, they had the idea of disengaging from society again.

So, they withdraw from the environment and return to their comfort zone again.

The arrogant and arrogant Taoism has become a place for them to escape from the world.

However, contrary to many people's imagination, cultivating the Tao does not mean being rotten.

Because the Taoist priests in film and television works and various short videos are all packaged.

The real monastic life is far more difficult than you think.

·The real Zhongnan Mountain cultivator

It takes courage for modern people to choose a simple life in which the sun rises and the sun goes down and leaves the hustle and bustle.

It's okay to say that they escaped or put it down, but in fact, they just changed their lives in a way that they could accept.