白居易诗
Poems of Bai Juyi
Index
夜坐
Night Meditation
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斜月入前楹 迢迢夜坐情 梧桐上阶影 蟋蟀近床声 |
Moonlight angles down the pillars As I sit crosslegged but very far from serene. Parasol tree shadows lie across the stairs And crickets sing all around me here on the bed. |
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曙傍窗间至 秋从簟上生 感时因忆事 不寝到鸡鸣 |
The first hints of morning are coming in the window. The chill of autumn has joined me on my mat. And all these memories keep me from not-thinking. I won't get back to sleep now before cockcrow. |
-- 白居易
废话
I don't know when Bai Juyi wrote this poem. He first mentions Buddhism, in a poem, in 789. By 801, he is corresponding with Buddhist monks but is far from serious in his practice. By 810, he is actually studying meditation from something of a master. But, really, he is still far from serious. I don't think Bai was ever terribly serious about religion. He dabbled in everything. He mainly liked people and poetry. Heaven could wait.
The title of this poem, 夜坐, is a popular title in Chinese poetry. As all or part of a title, it seems to be a touchstone for every serious poet. Those poems, and this one, are usually taken as serious meditations of some sort, perhaps due to the inclinations of the translators. You could translate this one seriously, too. But from my own experience of Sitting Forgetting and from my knowledge of Bai Juyi's religiosity, I think the above is more what he intended.