bamboo dream 竹夢

 

A few days ago, I mentioned having found a poem to cross a desert with. I boldly said, I didn't even need the entire poem at all--just that one famous line:  採菊東籬下-- Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence.

A popular subject for calligraphy or to be used for the seals of gentlemen on retirement, the phrase evokes the good life--not of La Dolce Vita but rather of the simple life; of a serenity achieved by a life of service and self-cultivation, where less is more and nature provides wonderful company.

It is, I think the simple truth that contentedness comes from being easily contented. And hence lies the great allure of plucking peonies (oops, I mean chrysanthemums).

 

A friend, having read my blog post then mysteriously posted another poem to my facebook wall: 

 

"Passage of Sighs"
Cao Zhi, AD 229

Carried out by strong winds
Only wanting to return home
Heading southward, the wind blows me northward
Thinking it will blow eastward, it takes me westward
Drifting, drifting, where will I end up?
Surely I will perish and yet life continues
Wandering through hills and plains
Drifting and turning, no place to stay
Who knows my hurt?
I wish to be grass in the forest
Burned in autumn fires
Destroyed by fire-- does his extinguish the pain?
Wishing for this with my roots remaining

曹植
吁嗟篇

吁嗟此轉蓬，居世何獨然。
長去本根逝，宿夜無休閑。
東西經七陌，南北越九阡。
卒遇回風起，吹我入雲間。
自謂終天路，忽然下沉淵。
驚飆接我出，故歸彼中田。
當南而更北，謂東而反西。
宕宕當何依，忽亡而複存。
飄颻周八澤，連翩歷五山。
流轉無恆處，誰知吾苦艱。
願為中林草，秋隨野火燔。
糜滅豈不痛，願與根荄連。

Not surprising given he is a mysterious man, there was no explanation of why he posted it and at first I was thrown. So, I contacted the Great Professor Wang who kindly sent me the original Chinese and the historical context. In many ways, the story echoes the chaos experienced by Lady Li—a woman who lost everything she loved and yet chose the pen name, “easily contented” 易安 (whereby freedom is based less in our choices as in the ability to shape our lives around contingency).

Professor Wang explains,

This is supposed to be one of his later poems, sort of summarizing, and sighing over, his own painful life history, being blown here and there by successive political winds.  His father, Cao Cao, chose Cao Zhi's brother Cao Pi to be his successor to the throne, and kept Cao Zhi far from the center of power; after he became emperor, Cao Pi had Cao Zhi and their other brothers sent away from the capital (blown this way and that by winds of change....)"

The winds of change and the winds of destiny, I suppose Cao Zhi felt as if he had fallen through the cracks of his own life. I am still not happy with the english in the last line (and would love help with it!) but I like very much this image of enduring and self-cultivation through the overcoming of hardships; love the image of the poet hoping only that his roots will survive the fire.

Is this not the perfect poem for a mid-life crisis par excellance?

As to the title, remember when Dante sighed?

In late May, in the New York Review of Books,  Robert Harrison, reviewed Slavitt's new translation of La Vita Nuova. talking about poetry's connection to sighs, he says,

What appears to the eyes then becomes spiritualized and, as spirit, enters the onlooker's inner being, inspiring the soul to emit a sigh. From this sigh of inspiration--this culminating intake and exhalation of breath--the poem we are reading is born.

  

As I have mentioned here many times before, Francois Jullien talking about daoist physiology brings up "breath phenomenon 氣象" and says that through one's in-haling and ex-haling, one breathes in landscape, atmosphere and social context and breathes out character, heart, correct behavior..............and poetry. Or as Rushdie says, "We inhale the world and breath out meaninf. While we can. While we can." 

This kind of elegant sighing in the wind/sighing in the mountains happens again and again in Chinese literary history. A person's dreams are dashed by fate and they lose everything (like running out of a burning house). But, finding great solace in nature, they realize (and are grateful that) they are still able to sigh. 

Suspiro ergo sum. 

For Tao Yuangming it was plucking chysanthemums and for Su Shi, it was bamboo.

 

On Qian Seng's Green Bamboo Skin Veranda, by Sū Shì

I would rather eat a meal without meat

than live in a place without bamboo.

Eating without meat makes you lose weight,

but living without bamboo makes you lose refinement.

When a person loses weight, it may be regained,

but when scholars lose refinement they are untreatable.

Others will find these words funny,

seeming lofty and at the same time, crazy.

Ruminate on this carefully if you're wise,

or you'll never ride a crane to Paradise.

 

"於潛僧綠筠軒"

蘇軾

可使食無肉，不可居無竹。

無肉令人瘦，無竹令人俗。

人瘦尚可肥，士俗不可醫。

旁人笑此言，似高還似痴。

若對此君欠大嚼，世間哪有揚州鶴。

 

The translation is Professor Wang's, and he explains that the "cranes of Yangzhou in the last line is a metaphor for ascending to heaven." It reminds me of the paintings made in the Heian period which depicted Amida traveling down to earth over spectacular landscapes on whispy sighing clouds to come and meet the dying and escort them back to paradise. The paintings, called Amida raigo-zu 阿弥陀来迎図, were sometimes held up right in front of the aristocracy when they were on their deathbed--their last sights being these beautiful paintings of landscapes with Amida traveling down to meet them on the breath of clouds.

Ah, the simple life.

A Poem to Cross a Desert With. Bamboo Dreams below (thank you so much, Ting-Jen, for introducing me to the amazing Cloud Gate Dance Theater).

Comments

[John Emerson]

轉蓬 is tumbleweed (Salsola pestifera, an Asian plant which came to the American West during the 19th century.

[John Emerson]

Others say that it's Salsola tragus from the Ukraine.

[peony]

Hi John, I can't find it but I am sure that I saw a translation for that line, "a tumbleweed blowing in the wind" which works... but obviously I prefer to just leave it "blowing in the wind" because that other translation as far as I can see is not standard...... Maybe someone else will have more to say... I did ask Professor Wang about the Cranes of Yangzhou again (because the Japanese meaning of 有揚州鶴 means something different from simply "go to heaven" but rather means やりたいことを、一気に全部やろうとすること。 So, the good professor explained it like this:

相传古时有几个人聚在一起，各说自己的愿望：一个说愿做扬州的刺史；一个说想当万贯富翁；另一个说愿能骑仙鹤游天做仙；最后一个说他“愿腰緾十万贯，骑鹤上扬州。”这人想同时拥有其他三人的愿望。后人就以“扬州鹤”来代表十全十美的，完全合乎理想的事物，也等于是奢望的代名词。

Legend has it that a few guys got together and started talking about what their greatest wish would be. One of them said he would like to be the governor of Yangzhou; one said that he would like to become a millionaire; another said that he would like to ride up to heaven on the back of a crane and become an immortal; the last one said he would like to ride to Yangzhou on the back of a crane with a million dollars in his wallet. He wanted to have the best of the other three people's wishes all in one wish. Thereafter, people used the phrase "ride a crane to Yangzhou" to stand for "utterly perfect, totally ideal situations," and also for "extravagant, unrealistic hopes."

This puts it closer in meaning to the Japanese concept of "going for it all" but another friend says this:

The last line refers to a story about someone who wants to ride a crane to Yangzhou with lots of money -- foolishly hoping for something that cannot ever be attained. So the key is to focus on the important things.

[John Emerson]

I have been meaning to translate the Caos and their cronies for some time. Chinese shi poetry first became respectable at the highly irregular Cao court.

[peony]

Total cronies! Why don't you start with the one above? I would love to see how you handle the last line... the above is my last shot at it. But it needs work. There are some Buddhified comments about it in the comments thread of the original post a Poem to Cross a Desert with. I think really the poem is not Buddhist but very much about this world--family, hometown, the capital, politics and keeping one's heart in the right place (maybe?) I also think the poem by Tao Yuangming and Su Shi above echo the sentiments beautiful... Aren't I a geek? ;-)

[John Emerson]

The Caos were a little bit Taoist and not at all Buddhist, but the reality is that they were an upstart warlord dynasty in a rather precarious situation. Their role in the rise of the shi is a real problem bacause Cao Cao the founder is hated by all good Chinese Confucians, novel-readers, and operagoers. Cao Cao affected Daoism but I think that we can assume that he bent it to his own needs and whims. To my knowledge he is the most successful megalomaniac ever to write a megalomaniac poem. Most megalomaniac poets are losers or second string players, but Cao Cao was big time. One battle won and one usurpation warded off and he would have been the founder of one of the great dynasties.

[peony]

Here is the other one:
登科後
孟郊　　

昔日齷齪不足誇， 今朝放蕩思無涯。
春風得意馬蹄疾， 一日看盡長安花。

http://kanshi.roudokus.com/toukago.html

[John Emerson]

齷齪 means what in this poem? In 1983 I learned it as an idiom meaning something like "scumbag", "creep", or "lowlife" (I think).

[peony]

The site I linked to above (under poem) glossed it as 苦労 and that is a real Japanese way of putting it. Poet is talking about all the insufferable crap or hardship he had to put up with to pass the examinations!! That poem is where I got the sub-title of my blog, of course!! In Japanese, 花 could only mean sakura but here the flowers of Chang'an could only be peonies... ;)
(Was at the pool--sorry to be late responding. Are you East or West?)

[douglas brodley]

I was craning my neck over a slim volume. . . . I had failed to sell it again and again. It was unshelved having no place in my room, returned again from another used book store unwanted. A thought flashed through my mind, "what if I am really meant to have this book, perhaps it wants to be here with me," Sort of like my dad used to say, "A women walks here own way through life until a man steps in her way she doesn't want to walk around," and if this book were a women the saying would certainly have been true. But again, I paid no attention to my thought or the book. But it kept getting in my way, because I had no where to put the unwanted thing. tonight: I randomly opened the neglected thing, a assuredly turgid study of Shinran's thought and the light in my eyes travelled down to this quote:

"When one believes in the Original Vow of the Tathagata for one moment, he is assuredly "caused to receive" unsurpassed virtue without soliciting it. Unconsciously he receives profound blessing. It is the law which manifests therefore various insights (Satori) naturally (Jinen)"

from the "Shinran Kyogaku" quoted in Bloom's "Shinran's Gospel of Pure Grace"

Because fathoming the measureless immensity of love implicit in the exponentiated Bodhisattva Vow of Amida, itself triggers realization (satori) or is it that knowing he had fallen from his own Buddha Nature and expected only to realize it truly in Paradise, the Original Vow, whatever that may have been, was felt to touch him as if the vow had been taken for him, and moved by Amida's Grace, to ride his crane to paradise.

[Jan]

登科後
孟郊　　

昔日齷齪不足誇， 今朝放蕩思無涯。
春風得意馬蹄疾， 一日看盡長安花。

齷齪 means "narrow minded" in classical writings.
放蕩 means "unconventional", but also dissolute.
春風 is also a metaphor for "sexual intercourse", and 得意 means "satisfied"
長安花, in a young man's poems, usually means "the courtesans in the capital"

When the Tang courtesan/poetess/Daoist nun 魚玄機 wrote her poem "Selling Wilted Peonies" (賣殘牡丹) in Chang'an, she was clearly using peonies as a metaphor for herself.

"Written After Passing the Civil Service Exam"
Mèng Jiāo

Years ago I was so narrow minded,
nothing to brag about,
but now I'm really living it up,
my mind unconstrained.
My horse's hooves are worn out
as I ride the crest of success,
seeing every blossom in Chang'an
in a single day.

Or, on the other hand, it could be that I'm just a horny old man?

Jan 8-)