Topic: Zen and Taoist Poetry

[Nichi]

From high above, the river steadily plunges.
Three thousand feet of sparkling water,
The Milky Way pouring down from heaven.

- Li T'ai-po
Taoist
8th Century China

[Nichi]

The birds have vanished into the sky,
and now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

-Li Po

[Nichi]

Chang Chiu-ch'en's Poem of Enlightenment

In a moonlit night on a spring day,
The croak of a frog
Pierces through the whole cosmos and turns it into
a single family!

Chang Chiu-ch'en

[Nichi]

Sharing a Mountain Hut with a Cloud

A lonely hut on the mountain-peak towering above a thousand others;
One half is occupied by an old monk and the other by a cloud:
Last night it was stormy and the cloud was blown away;
After all a cloud could not equal the old man's quiet way.

Kuei-tsung Chih-chih, a monk who lived in a humble hut on Lu-shan


http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/poems.htm

[Nichi]

Ancient Air

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert's cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun's passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it's time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing Taking the Hard Road.

~Li Po (Li Bai)

[Nichi]

Question and Answer on the Mountain

You ask for what reason I stay on the green mountain,
I smile, but do not answer, my heart is at leisure.
Peach blossom is carried far off by flowing water,
Apart, I have heaven and earth in the human world.

~Li Po (Li Bai)

[Nichi]

Seeing Off a Friend

Green hills above the northern wall,
White water winding east of the city.
On this spot our single act of parting,
The lonely tumbleweed journeys ten thousand li.
Drifting clouds echo the traveller's thoughts,
The setting sun reflects my old friend's feelings.
You wave your hand and set off from this place,
Your horse whinnies as it leaves.

~Li Po (Li Bai)

Another version/translation:

Parting

Green mountains rise to the north;
white water rolls past the eastern city.

Once it has been uprooted,
the tumbleweed travels forever.

Drifting clouds like a wanderer's mind;
sunset, like the heart of your old friend.

We turn, pause, look back and wave,
Even our ponies look back and whine.

~Li Po

(I like the second better...)

[Nichi]

The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
I don't know others,
Others don't know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature's course.

-   Ryokan, Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf,
    Translated by John Stevens

[Nichi]

Gone, and a million things leave no trace
Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind--
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me:
Now I know the pearl of the Buddha-nature
Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.

Han-Shan, circa 630
The Enlightened Heart, edited by Stephen Mitchell

[Nichi]

But I say unto you,
Take this staff just as a staff;
Movement is movement;
Sitting is sitting,
           but don't wobble
           under any circumstances!
My staff has turned into a dragon
           and swallowed up the whole world.
Where are the poor mountains and rivers and great earth now?

Vasubandhu* happened to transform himself
Into a staff of chestnut wood, and,
Striking the earth once,
All the innumerable Buddhas were released
           from their entangling words.
   

Yun-men Wen-yen, (Ummon), 864-949
Sermons
Translated by R. H. Blyth
Zen and Zen Classics: Selections

*Vasubandhu -- The Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (4th century C.E.) was a great light at the peak of India's resplendent Gupta empire. His works display his mastery of Buddhist as well as non-Buddhist thought of the day, and he made his mark, successively, upon three Buddhist scholastic traditions that are traditionally considered distinct: Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, and Yogācāra. His master work of Abhidharma thought, the Commentary on the Treasury of the Abhidharma (Abhidharmakośabhāṣya), is to this day the primary resource for knowledge of “Śrāvaka” or non-Mahāyāna philosophy among Tibetan and East Asian Buddhist schools.....
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vasubandhu/

[Nichi]

A serving of snow in a silver bowl,
Or herons concealed in the glare of the moon
Apart, they seem similar, together, they're different.
Meaning cannot rest in words,
It adapts itself to that which arises.
Tremble and you're lost in a trap,
Miss and there's always regrets.

― Dongshan Liangjie (Tōzan Ryōkai)

[Nichi]

This body's lifetime is like a bubble's
may as well let things go
plans and events seldom agree
who can step back doesn't worry
we blossom and fade like flowers
we gather and part like clouds
earthly thoughts I forgot long ago
withering away on a mountain peak

- Stonehouse

(Translated by Red Pine, from 'The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems & Talks of a 14th Century Chinese Hermit')

[Michael]

This body's lifetime is like a bubble's
may as well let things go
plans and events seldom agree
who can step back doesn't worry
we blossom and fade like flowers
we gather and part like clouds
earthly thoughts I forgot long ago
withering away on a mountain peak

- Stonehouse

Exactly as I was saying in my own blog recently... may as well let things go

[Nichi]

Synchronicity...

[Nichi]

When I dwell on things,
Such as flowers and phantoms,
And how they differ,
My heart, all of a sudden,
Shatters into a million pieces.

Shinkei
15th Century Japan