Monks at Baizhang Mountain hid their elderly abbot’s farm tools one day, hoping to spare him physical labour; Baizhang refused to eat until the tools were returned; the phrase produced, “A day without work is a day without food”, still governs Zen monasteries today.
九世纪的一天,百丈山的僧众悄悄藏起了年迈住持的农具,想让他免于劳作之苦;百丈禅师却因此绝食,直至农具归还方才进食,由此留下的这句话——”一日不作,一日不食”——至今仍是禅宗寺院奉行的准则。
Baizhang Huaihai worked the fields himself well into his eighties, at what is now Baizhang Mountain in Fengxin county, part of Yichun prefecture, and drew up what became known as the Pure Rules of Baizhang, the first comprehensive code of conduct for Chan monastic life; the rule required monks to farm, cook and clean for themselves rather than rely solely on alms, a break from earlier Buddhist practice.
百丈怀海本人年逾八十仍亲自下田劳作,地点就在今日宜春辖下奉新县境内的百丈山;他制定的《百丈清规》,成为禅宗僧团生活的第一部完整行为准则,要求僧众自耕自炊、自理起居,而非单纯依赖信众布施,这与此前的佛教惯例大不相同。
According to accounts collected by Buddhist scholars, Baizhang’s rule spread from Yichun through Chan Buddhism across China and later into Japan, Korea and Vietnam as Zen, shaping monastery architecture and daily practice in traditions that still trace their lineage back to this single mountain.
据佛学研究者整理的相关记载显示,百丈的这套清规,从宜春传遍中国各地的禅宗寺院,后又随禅宗东传日本、朝鲜半岛与越南,深刻影响了这些地区寺院的建筑格局与日常修行方式,而这些传承至今的宗派,仍可将法脉追溯至这座山头。
Asia’s Lithium Capital, Built beneath the Same Mountains
亚洲锂都,坐落于同一片山地之下
Those same mountains around Yichun turned out to hold something else entirely; by the end of 2022, the prefecture held an estimated 28 percent of China’s total lithium reserves, drawn primarily from lepidolite-rich rock rather than the brine lakes or spodumene deposits found elsewhere in the country. The local government began marketing the city as Asia’s Lithium Capital, and CATL and BYD, the world’s largest EV battery and electric vehicle makers respectively, both built operations there.
宜春周边的这片山地,后来却被发现蕴藏着截然不同的资源;截至二零二二年底,该地区锂储量约占全国总量的百分之二十八,主要来自富含锂云母的岩石,而非其他产区常见的盐湖卤水或锂辉石矿。当地政府开始将这座城市打造为”亚洲锂都”,宁德时代与比亚迪——分别是全球最大的电动车电池与整车制造商——均在此设厂。
Lithium prices peaked at ¥590,000 a tonne in 2022, a fifteenfold increase since 2020, drawing well over a hundred new lithium-related projects to the prefecture within a single year.
二零二二年,碳酸锂价格一度飙升至每吨五十九万元,较二零二零年上涨十五倍,单一年内便为该地区吸引来上百个与锂产业相关的新建项目。
A Boom that Beijing Has Since Started to Rein In
一场北京已开始出手降温的产业热潮
That boom has since cooled considerably. Lithium prices fell sharply after 2022 as supply caught up with demand, and in 2025 CATL was forced to halt operations at its own Yichun mine after its extraction licence expired, a pause analysts linked to Beijing’s broader effort to curb overcapacity in the EV battery sector.
这场热潮此后已明显降温。二零二二年之后,随着供应逐渐追上需求,锂价大幅回落;二零二五年,宁德时代在宜春的一处矿场,更因采矿许可证到期而被迫停产,分析人士将此举与北京方面遏制电动车电池行业产能过剩的整体政策联系在一起。
Local officials have separately ordered crackdowns on illegal and environmentally damaging mining practices, halting production at several plants at once and briefly disrupting the supply of a metal the city had spent barely a decade building its identity around.
当地官员也曾另行下令,整治非法及破坏环境的采矿行为,一次性叫停多家工厂的生产,短暂扰乱了这种金属的供应——而围绕这一金属打造城市身份,宜春前后也不过用了十年光景。
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Yichun’s GDP reached ¥371.1 billion that year, up 6.1 percent, with per capita output at ¥75,404; the permanent population stood at 4.8988 million, down 45,500 on the year before.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年宜春市GDP达三千七百一十一亿元,同比增长百分之六点一,人均产值为七万五千四百零四元;常住人口为四百八十九点八八万人,较上年减少四点五五万人。
Getting to Yichun means a high-speed rail journey of around 40 minutes from Nanchang, on the line running through to Changsha, or a short flight into Yichun Mingyueshan Airport, which serves domestic routes across the country.
前往宜春,可乘坐高铁,从南昌出发车程约四十分钟,该线路继续延伸至长沙;也可乘飞机抵达宜春明月山机场,该机场开通了通往全国各地的国内航线。
Baizhang’s farm tools are long gone, but monks at the mountain that bears his name still work the fields each day, a few dozen kilometres from mines now dug for a metal he never could have imagined.
百丈的农具早已不复存在,但如今在这座以他命名的山中,僧人们依旧每日下田劳作,而距此仅数十公里之外,矿工们挖掘的,却是一种连他本人都无法想象的金属。
