Legend of the Royal Poinciana

Legend of the Royal Poinciana

Legend 1:

Once upon a time, Guanyin's Yao Chi was full of lotus flowers. Thanks to Guanyin's love and the blessed land of Lingze, they bloomed luxuriantly, beautifully and charmingly. Suddenly one day, a rare magical flower, a pair of lotus flowers bloomed in the lotus pond - the Twin Lotus - a pair of lotus flowers blooming on the same branch, equally beautiful, equally lovely, and equally holy. Their beauty and excellence made Guanyin particularly fond of them. But one day, disaster came quietly. This pair of spiritual creatures, who were loved by the Bodhisattva and absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, understood human joys, anger, sorrows, and happiness, and gave rise to human seven emotions and six desires. They became uneasy, they fell in love, they depended on each other, they were tender and affectionate, they were intoxicated in pure love, they sang and laughed all day long, and they completely forgot the Buddhist rules and regulations.

Their happiness finally angered their lord, the Bodhisattva. How could the "Pure Land" of Buddhism tolerate the desecration of the "love" of a pair of little lotuses? She wanted to destroy one of them, but the little lotus answered firmly: "No, we live and die together!" She wanted to separate them, sending one to the ends of the earth and the other to the corners of the sea, but the little lotuses said in unison: "No! We will never be separated!" The Bodhisattva was furious, but pretended not to care: "Then you two go into the fire, and whoever gets afraid of the heat first will come out first!" Then flames rose and thick smoke billowed. The Samadhi True Fire was more torturous than the bites of poisonous snakes and beasts!

However, no one was frightened by these little twin lotuses. They gritted their teeth and replaced screaming with smiles. They clenched their hands and fought the raging fire with strength, and finally they caught fire! The leaves have melted! The flowers are burning too! Just as a faint smile appeared on the Bodhisattva's lips, suddenly a thunderclap shook the earth! Two brilliant rays of light rushed to the sky in the fireworks. A small lotus died, but two fire phoenixes sang happily in the sky: "We are divine birds born in the raging fire. People call us phoenix and phoenix. We come from the beautiful fairy island..." They flew and sang, sometimes dancing and sometimes combing their feathers. The feathers fell to the ground, took root, grew trunks, produced leaves, and bloomed. They are the paulownia trees and phoenix flowers that are famous today. According to legend, whenever a young man woke up at night due to unspeakable distress, he would see a pair of beautiful birds playing on the paulownia tree under the moon.

Legend 2:

"The Book of Songs. Da Ya" says: "The phoenix is ​​singing on the high hill; the phoenix tree is growing in the morning sun." A distinct image comes to my mind inadvertently: a divine bird is standing tall on a high hill, flapping its wings as if ready to take off; the phoenix tree, a symbol of nobleness, is standing tall in front of the morning sun.

A young man, who has always loved the phoenix tree and admired the phoenix, suddenly looked up and saw that the phoenix flowers were about to wither. He couldn't help but want to transform himself into a phoenix tree to face the morning sun, or a phoenix to stand on a high hill in the cold; or even thought that he was already a phoenix, standing on a phoenix tree on a high hill; or... A pure and graceful phoenix spread its wings and brightened the blue of the sky! But in the distance, there was a faint and intermittent farewell song that kept being sung, like the harmony of a folk ballad, winding its way through the main melody clearly and mysteriously. Even though we knew it was not important, the ballad that had been sung for more than a thousand days would have been overshadowed without the short chorus at the end.

Therefore, the phoenix flower evokes not only the memory of childhood transformation into a butterfly, but also the sentimentality of a young boy’s dream of transforming into a phoenix. The impression of "like" and "fire" coupled with the soft singing of "Li" woke the young man from his dream, and he realized with shock that he was neither the phoenix nor the morning glory. Finally I saw my own face in the broken dream. It turned out that I was just a young boy. It turned out to be just a nightmare.

The life of seeking knowledge for many years, at the risk of life and death, was about to pass by without the slightest trace, just like the cry of a wild goose passing by, which could be heard in my ears even though the cry had stopped, but it left behind a touching sorrow. And the young man who dreams of turning into a phoenix is ​​just quietly waiting for separation like everyone else. He stands on the hilltop before sunset, trying to turn the setting sun into night. Only the darkness of the night, and only the darkness of the night, can diminish the red beauty of the remaining shadow of the phoenix flowers during the day!