EAST 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Li Bai, Chinese Poetry, Mount Tai
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Tang Dynasty Poetry
*Tang Dynasty is known for being the pinnacle of Chinese poetry
Ideal of the “True Friend”
zhiyin 知音, or true friend—literally, one who “knows the sounds.”
Zen monks would compose poetry to express enlightenment beyond
words. They model language off of the ideal of the Zhyin
○
Through music/poetry you have direct access to someone's mind/moral
character
○
Model that the wordless mind-to-mind transmission seems to be coming
from
○
-
Bo Ya was a good lute player and Zhong Ziqi was a good listener. Bo Ya
strummed his lute, with his mind on climbing high mountains; and Zhong Ziqi
said: “Good! Lofty like Mount Tai!” When his mind was on flowing waters,
Zhong Ziqi said: “Good! Boundless like the Yellow River and the Yangtze!”
Whatever came into Bo Ya’s thoughts, Zhong Ziqi always grasped it.
Zen mind-to-mind transmission
-
Literary cultivation and friendship
Importance of literary cultivation in its relation to friendship
○
Social function of creating bonds with poets and makes friendships
○
To develop friendship, you need to be cultivated the literary arts
○
Part of the art of poetry is saying something without saying it
○
-
Tang Dynasty (618–907): “Golden Age” of Chinese Poetry
Famous poets: Du Fu (Tu Fu), Li Bai (Li Po), Wang Wei, etc.
-
Civil Service examination
Part of this was studying and composing poetry
○
Creates a context in which a lot fo great poetry was produced
○
-
Travelling officials
Officials had to travel from post to post
Didn't want officials to stay in place for too long because central
government didn't them to gain too much power
§
Context of separation in these officials' lives that is present in
poetry. Write about friendship and leaving friends
§
○
-
Yin-yang complementary opposites: Friends and China’s “Greatest Poets”
Du Fu 杜甫 “Poet-Historian” (Confucian)
Concerned with mundane, ordinary and historical
○
-
Li Bai 李白 “Banished Immortal” (Daoist)
Was in immortal round of heaven but cause too much trouble so has sent
back to Earth
○
-
Good friends and wrote poetry to one another, but were different personalities.
-
Du Fu, “Spring Scene”
The country is ruined: yet, mountains and rivers remain,
Now spring in the city, where grasses and trees grow thick.
Moved by the times, flowers wet with tears,
Fearing separation, birds startle the heart.
Since watch-tower fires have burned for three months,
A letter from home is worth its weight in gold.
White hairs on my head, scratched so thin,
they’re barely able to hold a single hairpin. (trans. Chris Byrne)
Context: An Lushan rebellion (755-763)
Rebellion that led to the Tang dynasty empire. Tang dynasty continued
after the empire, but were on a downward path. Lost authority and
couldn't consolidate their power
○
Human society is in ruins; human creations have been destroyed, where
mountains and nature persist. Permanence of the context of nature as
impermanent (nature is in a constant cycle of change)
○
-
Friendship and human relationship within this context of solitude and being
removed from ordinary human relationships
-
Mastered a style of poetry called regulated verse (strict rules, regulations in
composing these verses)
Rules about tone, rhymes, syntax, structures
○
He mastered this but you can't really see this in the translations
○
Poets were often asked to spontaneously compose poems (at party, when
friends leave, etc) so they mastered these rules so that they could
produce poems on the spot
○
Notion of being free within the rules and expressing yourself outside of
the rules. Important part of Tang poetry
○
-
Li Bai, “Drinking Alone With the Moon”
With a jug of wine, amidst the flowers,
I drink alone with no companion.
I lift my cup and invite the moon,
Facing my shadow, we become three.
Yet the moon does not know how to drink,
And my shadow just follows me around.
Still I make the moon and shadow my companions
to enjoy the spring while it lasts.
I sing, and the moon sways back and forth,
I dance, and my shadow scatters about.
While sober, we enjoy one another,
Once drunk, we all part ways.
Let’s travel on without sorrow,
Until we meet again in the distant Milky Way.
(trans. Chris Byrne)
Known for expressive verse that go past the rules
-
This is known as 'old style verse'
-
Hanshan 寒山 “Cold Mountain”
Unusual lpoet from Tang dynasty
-
Popular among Zen monks and nuns and in the West
-
Hanshan 寒山 and Shide 拾得
“No one knows where Hanshan comes from”
-
(寒山子, 不知何許人)
-
Hanshan as Transcendent
Seen as
-
The Image of Hanshan in his Poetry
Translations portray Hanshan in very different ways
-
Gary Snyder
(Account in Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums)
○
Went to Japan and became a Zen monk, so he has a more profound
knowledge of Buddhism
○
Writes about Hanshan as a counter-cultural type figure that rejects
society and lives out in the mountains (kind of like himself)
○
-
Burton Watson
One of the most respected translators of Chinese literature
○
Translates Hanshan to be kind of like himself (ex failed scholar)
○
Life story: failed scholar, wife and child (Burton Watson)
○
Expresses emotion and sorrow
Buddhists are supposed to have passed this human suffering… why
is there so much sorrow?
§
○
-
Cold Mountain
People ask the way to Cold Mountain;
The road to Cold Mountain leads nowhere.
Even in summer, ice remains;
The sun shining thru mist—dim and obscure.
How was I able to get there?
Our hearts are not the same.
If your heart was like mine,
You would be right here.
(Trans. Chris Byrne)
Poems don't have names but often revolve around the imagery of the cold
mountain
Hanshan's name literally means cold mountain
○
-
Poem is colloquial; uses colloquial vernacular expressions
-
Uses 1st person "I" which is often excluded from Chinese poetry because it is
included in the language; has strong personal presence in his poetry
-
Doesn't follow ordinary rules of poetry like he doesn't follow the ordinary rules
of society
-
Concerned more with meaning of the verse than with the craft of poetry
Chinese literature often has thing tension between meaning and craft
(Confucian view: moral message is more important; but there is a tension
here)
○
-
Cold Mountain
Hanshan 寒山 as “Cold Mountain”
Monks often take the name of where they live as their name because
they identify themselves with their environment
○
No different between self and other
○
-
Name, place, and symbolic meaning
No self
Idea of selflessness
§
Hanshan is isolated and is one with nature/the world; has no self
§
○
Original nature
Cold mountain is where he originally come from and spending his
life here symbolizes his return to his original nature
§
○
Austerity of reclusion
Withdrawal from society often associated with living in nature; the
mountains
§
Cold Mountain is very remote and austere
§
○
-
Cold Mountain and Self-Realization
Distance vs. immediacy
Remote strange place but also something completely immediate (right
here)
○
Poem starts with 'how do you get to this place' then language shifts to say
that Cold Mountain is always accessible - it doesn't depend on place, but
your mind/mental state
○
In the poem, the Chinese word for 'heart' also means mind so he is
referring to heart and mind
○
To get to Cold Mountain, you need the heart and mind of Hanshan (Cold
Mountain)
○
1.
Buddhist path: Cold Mountain is on the Cold Mountain path to Cold Mountain
He is on the path to nowhere.
○
'Hanshan is on the path to Hanshan' - he is on the path to himself,
nowhere else. The beginning, the means and the end are all the same
○
Idea: when you become enlightened, you don't change - you are the same
person as before
○
2.
Buddha-nature and Self-Realization
Potential1.
Actual: original enlightenment2.
Buddha-nature and practice: beginning, means, ends are the same
-
“Riding an ox in search of an ox”
Ox is symbol for Buddha nature
○
You are already one with this Buddha nature; you already have it
○
Symbolism: you are riding the ox but don't know it is an ox
○
Through this search, you understand the reality of what Buddha nature is
and you understand yourself
○
-
Buddha nature is on the path to Buddha nature. You have inherent Buddha
nature, but to realize this you have to use Buddha nature
-
Hanshan’s Sorrow
I have lived at Cold Mountain
These thirty long years.
Yesterday I called on friends and family:
More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;
Forever flowing, like a passing river.
Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:
Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.
(trans. Gary Snyder)
Yellow springs: underworld
-
Poem: he has been away from the world, remote on Cold Mountain, but gets
curious about his friends and family. Realizes many have died, and at first seems
dispassionate (things die, everything is impermanent). Then, he sees his shadow
and realizes his own impermanence and has sudden rush of emotion.
-
Q: Is this a Buddhist poem?
Expression of selflessness and identification with the world of suffering and
desire
-
Idea that the ordinary world (samsara) is identical to the ultimate world
(nirvana)
-
Hanshan is at one with suffering; he has no self in the relation to the ordinary
world. Becomes a way for him to experience compassion (which literally means
suffering with others)
Buddhist idea: don't transcend suffering, but becomes idea of suffering.
Different kind of transcendence?
○
-
Zen enlightenment
The ordinary person attains enlightenment and becomes a sage.
How we usually think enlightenment works. You are deluded in the world
of suffering, practice Buddhism, have enlightenment and become a sage
○
This is only starting point - you need a 2nd enlightenment
○
-
The sage attains enlightenment and becomes an ordinary person.
You need this 2nd enlightenment in Zen
○
Thinking of yourself as a sage is a selfish attachment (think of yourself as
enlightened sage)
○
Zen is about becoming more human; realizing human nature rather than
trying to become something else
○
-
Wang Wei 王維 (701-761) and Buddhism
official, aristocrat
-
Had a countryside estate
Very wealthy
○
-
Zen Buddhism
Meditative tone; talk about meditation
○
-
Poetry: nature, reclusion, Buddhism
Poetry about being off in mountains writing about nature; gave
impression that he lived in the middle of nowhere
○
-
Painting
Accomplished painter
○
Relationship between painting and poetry
○
Visual qualities to his work
○
-
“Deer Park”
Empty mountain, no one is seen,
Only the echo of human voices is heard.
Returning light enters the deep grove,
And again shines on the green moss.
(trans. Marsha Wagner)
from “Wang River Collection”, friend Pei Di
-
See “Deer Fence” trans. by Burton Watson, p. 173
-
Is this about Buddhism? What is it telling us about Buddhism?
Watson: best Buddhist poems don't say anything about Zen. All meaning is
under the surface. Problem: how do you know the author is actually trying to
say something about Buddhism?
-
Passive tense in language: no self but realization of environment (him and
nature are one thing)
-
Mountain is empty, insubstantial, impermanent
-
Translating Wang Wei
Simple imagery/simple phrases
-
Only 20 characters
-
15: Tang Dynasty Poetry
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
8:35 AM
Tang Dynasty Poetry
*Tang Dynasty is known for being the pinnacle of Chinese poetry
Ideal of the “True Friend”
zhiyin 知音, or true friend—literally, one who “knows the sounds.”
Zen monks would compose poetry to express enlightenment beyond
words. They model language off of the ideal of the Zhyin
○
Through music/poetry you have direct access to someone's mind/moral
character
○
Model that the wordless mind-to-mind transmission seems to be coming
from
○
-
Bo Ya was a good lute player and Zhong Ziqi was a good listener. Bo Ya
strummed his lute, with his mind on climbing high mountains; and Zhong Ziqi
said: “Good! Lofty like Mount Tai!” When his mind was on flowing waters,
Zhong Ziqi said: “Good! Boundless like the Yellow River and the Yangtze!”
Whatever came into Bo Ya’s thoughts, Zhong Ziqi always grasped it.
Zen mind-to-mind transmission
-
Literary cultivation and friendship
Importance of literary cultivation in its relation to friendship
○
Social function of creating bonds with poets and makes friendships
○
To develop friendship, you need to be cultivated the literary arts
○
Part of the art of poetry is saying something without saying it
○
-
Tang Dynasty (618–907): “Golden Age” of Chinese Poetry
Famous poets: Du Fu (Tu Fu), Li Bai (Li Po), Wang Wei, etc.
-
Civil Service examination
Part of this was studying and composing poetry
○
Creates a context in which a lot fo great poetry was produced
○
-
Travelling officials
Officials had to travel from post to post
Didn't want officials to stay in place for too long because central
government didn't them to gain too much power
§
Context of separation in these officials' lives that is present in
poetry. Write about friendship and leaving friends
§
○
-
Yin-yang complementary opposites: Friends and China’s “Greatest Poets”
Du Fu 杜甫 “Poet-Historian” (Confucian)
Concerned with mundane, ordinary and historical
○
-
Li Bai 李白 “Banished Immortal” (Daoist)
Was in immortal round of heaven but cause too much trouble so has sent
back to Earth
○
-
Good friends and wrote poetry to one another, but were different personalities.
-
Du Fu, “Spring Scene”
The country is ruined: yet, mountains and rivers remain,
Now spring in the city, where grasses and trees grow thick.
Moved by the times, flowers wet with tears,
Fearing separation, birds startle the heart.
Since watch-tower fires have burned for three months,
A letter from home is worth its weight in gold.
White hairs on my head, scratched so thin,
they’re barely able to hold a single hairpin. (trans. Chris Byrne)
Context: An Lushan rebellion (755-763)
Rebellion that led to the Tang dynasty empire. Tang dynasty continued
after the empire, but were on a downward path. Lost authority and
couldn't consolidate their power
○
Human society is in ruins; human creations have been destroyed, where
mountains and nature persist. Permanence of the context of nature as
impermanent (nature is in a constant cycle of change)
○
-
Friendship and human relationship within this context of solitude and being
removed from ordinary human relationships
-
Mastered a style of poetry called regulated verse (strict rules, regulations in
composing these verses)
Rules about tone, rhymes, syntax, structures
○
He mastered this but you can't really see this in the translations
○
Poets were often asked to spontaneously compose poems (at party, when
friends leave, etc) so they mastered these rules so that they could
produce poems on the spot
○
Notion of being free within the rules and expressing yourself outside of
the rules. Important part of Tang poetry
○
-
Li Bai, “Drinking Alone With the Moon”
With a jug of wine, amidst the flowers,
I drink alone with no companion.
I lift my cup and invite the moon,
Facing my shadow, we become three.
Yet the moon does not know how to drink,
And my shadow just follows me around.
Still I make the moon and shadow my companions
to enjoy the spring while it lasts.
I sing, and the moon sways back and forth,
I dance, and my shadow scatters about.
While sober, we enjoy one another,
Once drunk, we all part ways.
Let’s travel on without sorrow,
Until we meet again in the distant Milky Way.
(trans. Chris Byrne)
Known for expressive verse that go past the rules
-
This is known as 'old style verse'
-
Hanshan 寒山 “Cold Mountain”
Unusual lpoet from Tang dynasty
-
Popular among Zen monks and nuns and in the West
-
Hanshan 寒山 and Shide 拾得
“No one knows where Hanshan comes from”
-
(寒山子, 不知何許人)
-
Hanshan as Transcendent
Seen as
-
The Image of Hanshan in his Poetry
Translations portray Hanshan in very different ways
-
Gary Snyder
(Account in Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums)
○
Went to Japan and became a Zen monk, so he has a more profound
knowledge of Buddhism
○
Writes about Hanshan as a counter-cultural type figure that rejects
society and lives out in the mountains (kind of like himself)
○
-
Burton Watson
One of the most respected translators of Chinese literature
○
Translates Hanshan to be kind of like himself (ex failed scholar)
○
Life story: failed scholar, wife and child (Burton Watson)
○
Expresses emotion and sorrow
Buddhists are supposed to have passed this human suffering… why
is there so much sorrow?
§
○
-
Cold Mountain
People ask the way to Cold Mountain;
The road to Cold Mountain leads nowhere.
Even in summer, ice remains;
The sun shining thru mist—dim and obscure.
How was I able to get there?
Our hearts are not the same.
If your heart was like mine,
You would be right here.
(Trans. Chris Byrne)
Poems don't have names but often revolve around the imagery of the cold
mountain
Hanshan's name literally means cold mountain
○
-
Poem is colloquial; uses colloquial vernacular expressions
-
Uses 1st person "I" which is often excluded from Chinese poetry because it is
included in the language; has strong personal presence in his poetry
-
Doesn't follow ordinary rules of poetry like he doesn't follow the ordinary rules
of society
-
Concerned more with meaning of the verse than with the craft of poetry
Chinese literature often has thing tension between meaning and craft
(Confucian view: moral message is more important; but there is a tension
here)
○
-
Cold Mountain
Hanshan 寒山 as “Cold Mountain”
Monks often take the name of where they live as their name because
they identify themselves with their environment
○
No different between self and other
○
-
Name, place, and symbolic meaning
No self
Idea of selflessness
§
Hanshan is isolated and is one with nature/the world; has no self
§
○
Original nature
Cold mountain is where he originally come from and spending his
life here symbolizes his return to his original nature
§
○
Austerity of reclusion
Withdrawal from society often associated with living in nature; the
mountains
§
Cold Mountain is very remote and austere
§
○
-
Cold Mountain and Self-Realization
Distance vs. immediacy
Remote strange place but also something completely immediate (right
here)
○
Poem starts with 'how do you get to this place' then language shifts to say
that Cold Mountain is always accessible - it doesn't depend on place, but
your mind/mental state
○
In the poem, the Chinese word for 'heart' also means mind so he is
referring to heart and mind
○
To get to Cold Mountain, you need the heart and mind of Hanshan (Cold
Mountain)
○
1.
Buddhist path: Cold Mountain is on the Cold Mountain path to Cold Mountain
He is on the path to nowhere.
○
'Hanshan is on the path to Hanshan' - he is on the path to himself,
nowhere else. The beginning, the means and the end are all the same
○
Idea: when you become enlightened, you don't change - you are the same
person as before
○
2.
Buddha-nature and Self-Realization
Potential1.
Actual: original enlightenment2.
Buddha-nature and practice: beginning, means, ends are the same
-
“Riding an ox in search of an ox”
Ox is symbol for Buddha nature
○
You are already one with this Buddha nature; you already have it
○
Symbolism: you are riding the ox but don't know it is an ox
○
Through this search, you understand the reality of what Buddha nature is
and you understand yourself
○
-
Buddha nature is on the path to Buddha nature. You have inherent Buddha
nature, but to realize this you have to use Buddha nature
-
Hanshan’s Sorrow
I have lived at Cold Mountain
These thirty long years.
Yesterday I called on friends and family:
More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;
Forever flowing, like a passing river.
Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:
Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.
(trans. Gary Snyder)
Yellow springs: underworld
-
Poem: he has been away from the world, remote on Cold Mountain, but gets
curious about his friends and family. Realizes many have died, and at first seems
dispassionate (things die, everything is impermanent). Then, he sees his shadow
and realizes his own impermanence and has sudden rush of emotion.
-
Q: Is this a Buddhist poem?
Expression of selflessness and identification with the world of suffering and
desire
-
Idea that the ordinary world (samsara) is identical to the ultimate world
(nirvana)
-
Hanshan is at one with suffering; he has no self in the relation to the ordinary
world. Becomes a way for him to experience compassion (which literally means
suffering with others)
Buddhist idea: don't transcend suffering, but becomes idea of suffering.
Different kind of transcendence?
○
-
Zen enlightenment
The ordinary person attains enlightenment and becomes a sage.
How we usually think enlightenment works. You are deluded in the world
of suffering, practice Buddhism, have enlightenment and become a sage
○
This is only starting point - you need a 2nd enlightenment
○
-
The sage attains enlightenment and becomes an ordinary person.
You need this 2nd enlightenment in Zen
○
Thinking of yourself as a sage is a selfish attachment (think of yourself as
enlightened sage)
○
Zen is about becoming more human; realizing human nature rather than
trying to become something else
○
-
Wang Wei 王維 (701-761) and Buddhism
official, aristocrat
-
Had a countryside estate
Very wealthy
○
-
Zen Buddhism
Meditative tone; talk about meditation
○
-
Poetry: nature, reclusion, Buddhism
Poetry about being off in mountains writing about nature; gave
impression that he lived in the middle of nowhere
○
-
Painting
Accomplished painter
○
Relationship between painting and poetry
○
Visual qualities to his work
○
-
“Deer Park”
Empty mountain, no one is seen,
Only the echo of human voices is heard.
Returning light enters the deep grove,
And again shines on the green moss.
(trans. Marsha Wagner)
from “Wang River Collection”, friend Pei Di
-
See “Deer Fence” trans. by Burton Watson, p. 173
-
Is this about Buddhism? What is it telling us about Buddhism?
Watson: best Buddhist poems don't say anything about Zen. All meaning is
under the surface. Problem: how do you know the author is actually trying to
say something about Buddhism?
-
Passive tense in language: no self but realization of environment (him and
nature are one thing)
-
Mountain is empty, insubstantial, impermanent
-
Translating Wang Wei
Simple imagery/simple phrases
-
Only 20 characters
-
15: Tang Dynasty Poetry
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 8:35 AM
Tang Dynasty Poetry
*Tang Dynasty is known for being the pinnacle of Chinese poetry
Ideal of the “True Friend”
zhiyin 知音, or true friend—literally, one who “knows the sounds.”
Zen monks would compose poetry to express enlightenment beyond
words. They model language off of the ideal of the Zhyin
○
Through music/poetry you have direct access to someone's mind/moral
character
○
Model that the wordless mind-to-mind transmission seems to be coming
from
○
-
Bo Ya was a good lute player and Zhong Ziqi was a good listener. Bo Ya
strummed his lute, with his mind on climbing high mountains; and Zhong Ziqi
said: “Good! Lofty like Mount Tai!” When his mind was on flowing waters,
Zhong Ziqi said: “Good! Boundless like the Yellow River and the Yangtze!”
Whatever came into Bo Ya’s thoughts, Zhong Ziqi always grasped it.
Zen mind-to-mind transmission
-
Literary cultivation and friendship
Importance of literary cultivation in its relation to friendship
○
Social function of creating bonds with poets and makes friendships
○
To develop friendship, you need to be cultivated the literary arts
○
Part of the art of poetry is saying something without saying it
○
-
Tang Dynasty (618–907): “Golden Age” of Chinese Poetry
Famous poets: Du Fu (Tu Fu), Li Bai (Li Po), Wang Wei, etc.
-
Civil Service examination
Part of this was studying and composing poetry
○
Creates a context in which a lot fo great poetry was produced
○
-
Travelling officials
Officials had to travel from post to post
Didn't want officials to stay in place for too long because central
government didn't them to gain too much power
§
Context of separation in these officials' lives that is present in
poetry. Write about friendship and leaving friends
§
○
-
Yin-yang complementary opposites: Friends and China’s “Greatest Poets”
Du Fu 杜甫 “Poet-Historian” (Confucian)
Concerned with mundane, ordinary and historical
○
-
Li Bai 李白 “Banished Immortal” (Daoist)
Was in immortal round of heaven but cause too much trouble so has sent
back to Earth
○
-
Good friends and wrote poetry to one another, but were different personalities.
-
Du Fu, “Spring Scene”
The country is ruined: yet, mountains and rivers remain,
Now spring in the city, where grasses and trees grow thick.
Moved by the times, flowers wet with tears,
Fearing separation, birds startle the heart.
Since watch-tower fires have burned for three months,
A letter from home is worth its weight in gold.
White hairs on my head, scratched so thin,
they’re barely able to hold a single hairpin. (trans. Chris Byrne)
Context: An Lushan rebellion (755-763)
Rebellion that led to the Tang dynasty empire. Tang dynasty continued
after the empire, but were on a downward path. Lost authority and
couldn't consolidate their power
○
Human society is in ruins; human creations have been destroyed, where
mountains and nature persist. Permanence of the context of nature as
impermanent (nature is in a constant cycle of change)
○
-
Friendship and human relationship within this context of solitude and being
removed from ordinary human relationships
-
Mastered a style of poetry called regulated verse (strict rules, regulations in
composing these verses)
Rules about tone, rhymes, syntax, structures
○
He mastered this but you can't really see this in the translations
○
Poets were often asked to spontaneously compose poems (at party, when
friends leave, etc) so they mastered these rules so that they could
produce poems on the spot
○
Notion of being free within the rules and expressing yourself outside of
the rules. Important part of Tang poetry
○
-
Li Bai, “Drinking Alone With the Moon”
With a jug of wine, amidst the flowers,
I drink alone with no companion.
I lift my cup and invite the moon,
Facing my shadow, we become three.
Yet the moon does not know how to drink,
And my shadow just follows me around.
Still I make the moon and shadow my companions
to enjoy the spring while it lasts.
I sing, and the moon sways back and forth,
I dance, and my shadow scatters about.
While sober, we enjoy one another,
Once drunk, we all part ways.
Let’s travel on without sorrow,
Until we meet again in the distant Milky Way.
(trans. Chris Byrne)
Known for expressive verse that go past the rules
-
This is known as 'old style verse'
-
Hanshan 寒山 “Cold Mountain”
Unusual lpoet from Tang dynasty
-
Popular among Zen monks and nuns and in the West
-
Hanshan 寒山 and Shide 拾得
“No one knows where Hanshan comes from”
-
(寒山子, 不知何許人)
-
Hanshan as Transcendent
Seen as
-
The Image of Hanshan in his Poetry
Translations portray Hanshan in very different ways
-
Gary Snyder
(Account in Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums)
○
Went to Japan and became a Zen monk, so he has a more profound
knowledge of Buddhism
○
Writes about Hanshan as a counter-cultural type figure that rejects
society and lives out in the mountains (kind of like himself)
○
-
Burton Watson
One of the most respected translators of Chinese literature
○
Translates Hanshan to be kind of like himself (ex failed scholar)
○
Life story: failed scholar, wife and child (Burton Watson)
○
Expresses emotion and sorrow
Buddhists are supposed to have passed this human suffering… why
is there so much sorrow?
§
○
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Cold Mountain
People ask the way to Cold Mountain;
The road to Cold Mountain leads nowhere.
Even in summer, ice remains;
The sun shining thru mist—dim and obscure.
How was I able to get there?
Our hearts are not the same.
If your heart was like mine,
You would be right here.
(Trans. Chris Byrne)
Poems don't have names but often revolve around the imagery of the cold
mountain
Hanshan's name literally means cold mountain
○
-
Poem is colloquial; uses colloquial vernacular expressions
-
Uses 1st person "I" which is often excluded from Chinese poetry because it is
included in the language; has strong personal presence in his poetry
-
Doesn't follow ordinary rules of poetry like he doesn't follow the ordinary rules
of society
-
Concerned more with meaning of the verse than with the craft of poetry
Chinese literature often has thing tension between meaning and craft
(Confucian view: moral message is more important; but there is a tension
here)
○
-
Cold Mountain
Hanshan 寒山 as “Cold Mountain”
Monks often take the name of where they live as their name because
they identify themselves with their environment
○
No different between self and other
○
-
Name, place, and symbolic meaning
No self
Idea of selflessness
§
Hanshan is isolated and is one with nature/the world; has no self
§
○
Original nature
Cold mountain is where he originally come from and spending his
life here symbolizes his return to his original nature
§
○
Austerity of reclusion
Withdrawal from society often associated with living in nature; the
mountains
§
Cold Mountain is very remote and austere
§
○
-
Cold Mountain and Self-Realization
Distance vs. immediacy
Remote strange place but also something completely immediate (right
here)
○
Poem starts with 'how do you get to this place' then language shifts to say
that Cold Mountain is always accessible - it doesn't depend on place, but
your mind/mental state
○
In the poem, the Chinese word for 'heart' also means mind so he is
referring to heart and mind
○
To get to Cold Mountain, you need the heart and mind of Hanshan (Cold
Mountain)
○
1.
Buddhist path: Cold Mountain is on the Cold Mountain path to Cold Mountain
He is on the path to nowhere.
○
'Hanshan is on the path to Hanshan' - he is on the path to himself,
nowhere else. The beginning, the means and the end are all the same
○
Idea: when you become enlightened, you don't change - you are the same
person as before
○
2.
Buddha-nature and Self-Realization
Potential1.
Actual: original enlightenment2.
Buddha-nature and practice: beginning, means, ends are the same
-
“Riding an ox in search of an ox”
Ox is symbol for Buddha nature
○
You are already one with this Buddha nature; you already have it
○
Symbolism: you are riding the ox but don't know it is an ox
○
Through this search, you understand the reality of what Buddha nature is
and you understand yourself
○
-
Buddha nature is on the path to Buddha nature. You have inherent Buddha
nature, but to realize this you have to use Buddha nature
-
Hanshan’s Sorrow
I have lived at Cold Mountain
These thirty long years.
Yesterday I called on friends and family:
More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;
Forever flowing, like a passing river.
Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:
Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.
(trans. Gary Snyder)
Yellow springs: underworld
-
Poem: he has been away from the world, remote on Cold Mountain, but gets
curious about his friends and family. Realizes many have died, and at first seems
dispassionate (things die, everything is impermanent). Then, he sees his shadow
and realizes his own impermanence and has sudden rush of emotion.
-
Q: Is this a Buddhist poem?
Expression of selflessness and identification with the world of suffering and
desire
-
Idea that the ordinary world (samsara) is identical to the ultimate world
(nirvana)
-
Hanshan is at one with suffering; he has no self in the relation to the ordinary
world. Becomes a way for him to experience compassion (which literally means
suffering with others)
Buddhist idea: don't transcend suffering, but becomes idea of suffering.
Different kind of transcendence?
○
-
Zen enlightenment
The ordinary person attains enlightenment and becomes a sage.
How we usually think enlightenment works. You are deluded in the world
of suffering, practice Buddhism, have enlightenment and become a sage
○
This is only starting point - you need a 2nd enlightenment
○
-
The sage attains enlightenment and becomes an ordinary person.
You need this 2nd enlightenment in Zen
○
Thinking of yourself as a sage is a selfish attachment (think of yourself as
enlightened sage)
○
Zen is about becoming more human; realizing human nature rather than
trying to become something else
○
-
Wang Wei 王維 (701-761) and Buddhism
official, aristocrat
-
Had a countryside estate
Very wealthy
○
-
Zen Buddhism
Meditative tone; talk about meditation
○
-
Poetry: nature, reclusion, Buddhism
Poetry about being off in mountains writing about nature; gave
impression that he lived in the middle of nowhere
○
-
Painting
Accomplished painter
○
Relationship between painting and poetry
○
Visual qualities to his work
○
-
“Deer Park”
Empty mountain, no one is seen,
Only the echo of human voices is heard.
Returning light enters the deep grove,
And again shines on the green moss.
(trans. Marsha Wagner)
from “Wang River Collection”, friend Pei Di
-
See “Deer Fence” trans. by Burton Watson, p. 173
-
Is this about Buddhism? What is it telling us about Buddhism?
Watson: best Buddhist poems don't say anything about Zen. All meaning is
under the surface. Problem: how do you know the author is actually trying to
say something about Buddhism?
-
Passive tense in language: no self but realization of environment (him and
nature are one thing)
-
Mountain is empty, insubstantial, impermanent
-
Translating Wang Wei
Simple imagery/simple phrases
-
Only 20 characters
-
15: Tang Dynasty Poetry
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 8:35 AM
Document Summary
*tang dynasty is known for being the pinnacle of chinese poetry. Ideal of the true friend zhiyin , or true friend literally, one who knows the sounds. Zen monks would compose poetry to express enlightenment beyond words. They model language off of the ideal of the zhyin. Through music/poetry you have direct access to someone"s mind/moral character. Model that the wordless mind-to-mind transmission seems to be coming from. Bo ya was a good lute player and zhong ziqi was a good listener. Bo ya strummed his lute, with his mind on climbing high mountains; and zhong ziqi said: good! Lofty like mount tai! when his mind was on flowing waters, Boundless like the yellow river and the yangtze! . Whatever came into bo ya"s thoughts, zhong ziqi always grasped it. Importance of literary cultivation in its relation to friendship. Social function of creating bonds with poets and makes friendships.
