Topic: More From the Tao

[Builder]

Before Huangshi pagoda the river flows east,
In spring’s brightness I’m tired and need the breeze.
An ownerless clump of peach blossom’s opened,
Is dark or light red more to be loved?

[Builder]

Brothers share five districts;
father and sons three states.
To learn where the wild ducks fly
follow the white-hare banner!
Find a magic melon in your dream!
Steal a sacred orange from the palace!
Far away from your native land
swim with fish in a stream!

[Builder]

I spur my horse past the ruined city;
the ruined city, that wakes the traveler's thoughts:
ancient battlements, high and low;
old grave mounds, great and small.

Where the shadow of a single tumbleweed trembles
and the voice of the great trees clings forever,
I sigh over all these common bones --
No roll of the immortals bears their names.

[Builder]

People ask for the road to Cold Mountain,
but no road reaches Cold Mountain.
Summer sky-still ice won't melt.
The sun comes out but gets obscured by mist.
Imitating me, where does that get you?
My mind isn't like yours.
When your mind is like mine
you can enter here.

[Michael]

People ask for the road to Cold Mountain,
but no road reaches Cold Mountain.
Summer sky-still ice won't melt.
The sun comes out but gets obscured by mist.
Imitating me, where does that get you?
My mind isn't like yours.
When your mind is like mine
you can enter here.

touche

[Builder]

touche

It is from Hanshan, a mysterious Buddha-Tao man nobody is even sure existed. Allegedly his poems were scribbled on rocks, trees, walls, etc. Eventually, he just vanished.

Hanshan

[Builder]

I usually live in seclusion
but sometimes I go to Kuoching
to call on the Venerable Feng-kan
or to visit Master Shih-Te.
But I go back to Cold Cliff alone,
obeying an unspoken agreement.
I follow a stream that has no spring
the spring is dry but not the stream.

[Builder]

In a dream I see the moon
Beams of light woven all around it
The Weaver Girl descends step by step
Not even a cloud to hold her up
She asks my name
"No one you'd know," I reply
Suddenly a pine breeze swirls by
Dazzling sunbeams flood my window

[Michael]

I usually live in seclusion
but sometimes I go to Kuoching
to call on the Venerable Feng-kan
or to visit Master Shih-Te.
But I go back to Cold Cliff alone,
obeying an unspoken agreement.
I follow a stream that has no spring
the spring is dry but not the stream.

golden wind

[Michael]

In a dream I see the moon
Beams of light woven all around it
The Weaver Girl descends step by step
Not even a cloud to hold her up
She asks my name
"No one you'd know," I reply
Suddenly a pine breeze swirls by
Dazzling sunbeams flood my window

That's really beautiful *

[Builder]

I divined and chose a distant place to dwell-
T'ien-t'ai: what more is there to say?
Monkeys cry where valley mists are cold;
My grass gate blends with the color of the crags.
I pick leaves to thatch a hut among the pines,
Scoop out a pond and lead a runnel from the spring.
By now I am used to doing without the world.
Picking ferns, I pass the years that are left.

[Builder]

You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.

Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are.

[Builder]

Thirty years ago I was born into the world.
A thousand, ten thousand miles I've roamed,
By rivers where the green grass lies thick,
Beyond the border where the red sands fly.
I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,
I read books, I sang songs of history,
And today I've come home to Cold Mountain
To pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears.

[Builder]

When men see Han-shan
They all say he's crazy
And not much to look at -
Dressed in rags and hides.
They don't get what I say
And I don't talk their language.
All I can say to those I meet:
"Try and make it to Cold Mountain."

[Nichi]

Before our body existed,
One energy was already there.
Like jade, more lustrous as it's polished,
Like gold, brighter as it's refined.
Sweep clear the ocean of birth and death,
Stay firm by the door of total mastery.
A particle at the point of open awareness,
The gentle firing is warm.