孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
送萧炼师入四明山
Escorting Master Xiao to Radiance Mountain
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闲于独鹤心 大于高松年 迥出万物表 高栖四明巅 |
Guarded by his lonely crane heart, Great from years of high meditation, Emerging apart from all appearances, Perched high on Radiance Mountain. |
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千寻直裂峰 百尺倒泻泉 绛雪为我饭 白云为我田 |
Many seek to break through on these peaks But enlightenment plunges down these streams. Consecration is my food and drink. Pure affections are my fields. |
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静言不语俗 灵踪时步天 |
Peaceful words are not common speech but Divine traces of when we walk in Heaven. |
-- 孟郊
废话
炼师 is "master of spiritual practices" and can mean either a Buddhist or a Daoist master of their respective practices. The master's name 萧 means "desolation." 绛雪 means "dark red snow." But 雪 can also mean to "wipe away wrong" and 绛 is the color of blood. Together these mean the deep effort to efface one's own wrongs and also give the image of bloody footprints on the snow. Hence, in order to fit in a short line of poetry, "consecration." 白云 are, on the surface, "white clouds" but they are also "pure affections." The crane (鹤) clearly has symbolic meanings, at least one of which is spiritual. But I still can't track it down in any dictionary.
But then, sinologists are curous creatures. Their interpretations of sexual relationships show a lack of practical experience (ref. Xue Tao's poem to Yuan Zhen and its interpretations). And their spiritual perceptions of Chinese are limited to dogmatic collations of late Buddhist ecclesiasticisms. So Western Chinese scholars inhabit a Limbo which is neither sensual nor spiritual. Where exactly does this leave them? Clue: Limbo is inhabited by unbaptised infants. For heaven's sake -- pick a baptism.