Mountains Become Rivers

MOUNTAINS BECOME RIVERS Collected Reader Collected Reader Welcome to this is free collection of notes and commonplace research, it is not fully edited, but may give some more insights into the body of work. Thank you for reading, B Preface – Drink Tea, Study Buddhism. To the readers, it is my tiny hope you take away a few things from this collection. 1. Sit quietly every day. Zazen is a form of seated meditation. All this really means is to sit quietly for period of time; long or short. there is no goal other than to sit calmly with yourself or even with a group of other people. Sit quietly, sit often. Practice being calm, being with yourself. Practice just being. It will challenge you and it will change you. 2. Poetry. Write it. Read it. Share it. It is a form of stillness and contemplation, a mental form of painting and capturing moments. Good or bad. Short or long. Don’t let moments slip away too easily from your fingers. They only need to hold meaning for you. Poems don’t need to be big or complex, they just need to communicate to you personally, in any way you deem suitable. 3. Drink Tea. Slowly prepare it. Slowly pour it. Slowly appreciate it. Alone or with company. Work towards helping the conservation of tea leaves for future generations. 4. Study Buddhist philosophy. Soto Zen is a branch of Buddhism, at its root is the simplest of actions, sitting. This gives a focus on understanding the self, compassion, and wisdom, so we can find our place in the universe and take that good knowledge into the world. collected: poets & poems koans & fables other reflections books to read citations and resources about the font poets & poems Li Bai (701–762CE) Known as the “Immortal Poet” or “The Banished Immortal,” Li Bai (701–762) is often considered the greatest Chinese poet of all time. His was the epitome of the classic Tang Dynasty poetry (tang shi). Li Bai was a wandering spirit, and his travels across China led him into the company of Daoists, literary men, and high officials, who often admired him greatly. I Listen to Jun, a Monk from Shu, Play His Lute The Shu monk carries a green silk lute west down Emei Mountain and each sweep of his hand is the song of a thousand pines in the valley. Flowing water cleans my wanderer's heart and the sound lingers like a frosty bell till I forget the mountain soaking in green dusk autumn clouds darkly folding in. Drinking Alone by Moonlight A pot of wine in the flower garden, but no friends drink with me. So I raise tiny cup to the bright moon and to my shadow, which makes us three, but the moon won't drink and my shadow just creeps about my heels. Yet in your company, moon and shadow, I have a wild time till spring dies out. I sing and the moon shudders. My shadow staggers when I dance. We have our fun while I can stand then drift apart when I fall asleep. Let's share this empty journey often and meet again in the milky river of stars. EMPEROR JOMEI (629-641CE) – symbols of prosperity During the the Asuka period in Japan 583-710 CE, Emperor Jomei(629-641CE) wrote very early history poems that reflected his nation. Jomei’s poem, Climbing Mount Kagu, demonstrates a land- viewing ritual (kunimi) poem to not only discuss mountains and the beauty of nature but his prosperous country: In the land of Yamato The mountains cluster; But the best of all mountains is Kagu - Kagu dropped from the skies. - I climbed, and stood, and viewed my lands. Over the broad earth Smoke-mist hovers. Over the broad earth Seagulls hover. / Beautiful, my country, My Yamato, Island of the dragonfly.” Thwaite8 What Jomei presents us with is a deep love in verse. We can see human traces in the landscape as imagery of progress / smoke-mist/ we can see the prosperous wilds, as seagulls must be fishing in the plentiful ocean. Bai Juyi (772- 846CE) He was a renowned poet during the period immediately following the peak period of the Tang Dynasty. The less educated people at that time could easily understand the language used in his poems, with their explicit themes. The poems flowed smoothly, and his poetic style was so unique that it became a literary form commonly known as Yuan-Bai-Ti, or Fundamentally Plain Form. Night Rain Chirp of an early cricket. Silence. The lamp dies then flares up again. Night must be raining outside the window. plink, plunk on the banana leaves After Getting Drunk, Becoming Sober in the Night Our party scattered at yellow dusk and I came home to bed; I woke at midnight and went for a walk, leaning heavily on a friend. As I lay on my pillow my vinous. complexion, soothed by sleep, grew sober: In front of the tower the ocean moon, accompanying the tide, had nsen. The swallows, about to return to the beams, went back to roost again; The candle at my window, just going out, suddenly revived its light. All the time till dawn came, still my thoughts were muddled; And in my ears something sounded like the music of flutes and strings. Translated by Arthur Waley Xue Tao (768-831) Like Bai Juyi, the poet Xue Tao was born in China during the T’ang Dynasty. She was a little older than Bai Juyi; she was born in 768 AD, during An Lushan‘s rebellion. Xue Tao was a well-respected Tang dynasty poet. She was born either in the Tang capital, Changan, or in Chengdu in present day Sichuan province, where her father, a minor government official, was posted. A story about her childhood, perhaps apocryphal, suggests that she was able to write complex poems by the age of seven or eight. She may have gained a literary education from her father, but he died before she reached marriageable age. More than one hundred of her poems survive. Moon Its spirit leans like a thin hook or opens round like a Han-loom fan, slender shadow whose nature is to be full seen everywhere in the human· world. The glint of moonlight is dim while the shape of the hook is small. A fan that pursues the Han loom is round. The slender image is going to be roundness of its nature again. How many places on earth can such a thing be seen? Seeing a Friend Off In water lands, night frost on reeds, a cold moon the color of .the mountains. Who says our thousand-mile separation starts tonight? My dream can travel to the farthest border pass. Ha Jin (1956- ) Ha Jin was born in Liaoning. The son of an army officer, he entered the People's Army early in the Cultural Revolution at a time when the schools were closed. He worked as a telegraph operator for some time, then went back to school, earning a BA and an MA. After coming to the United States and taking his Ph.D. in English and American literature at Brandeis University, he taught at Emory University before becoming a professor of English at Boston University. He has published three books of poetry-Between Silences, Facing Shadows, and Wreckagethree short story collections, and four novels, including Waiting, for which he won the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award. Like so many of his contemporaries, Ha Jin: elected to remain in exile from China. after the Tiananmen Square massacre: "After June 1989 I realized that I could not return to China in the near future if I wanted to be a writer who has the freedom to write." He is in the unusual position of being a Chinese poet and fiction writer who works in English and lives in America. As he writes in a letter: "Without question, I am a Chinese writer, not an AmericanChinese poet, though I write in English. If this sounds absurd, the absurdity is historical rather than personal ... since I can hardly publish anything in Chinese now." The craft of a novelist can be seen in Ha Jin's poems: he often writes in dramatic monologue, recording history from the inside, from the point of view of its imperfect and often unsympathetic protagonists. Our Words Although you were the strongest boy in our neighborhood you could beat none of us. Whenever we fought with you we would shout: "Your father was a landlord. You are a bastard of a blackhearted landlord." Or we would mimic your father's voice when he was publicly denounced: "My name is Li Wanbao. I was a landlord; before liberation I exploited my hired hands and the poor peasants. I am guilty and my guilt deserves ten thousand deaths." Then you would withdraw your hard fists and flee home cursing and weeping like a wild cat. You fought only with your hands, but we fought with both our hands and our words. We fought and fought and fought until we overgrew you and overgrew ourselves, until you and we were sent to the same village working together in the fields sharing tobacco and sorghum spirits at night and cursing the brigade leader behind his back when he said: "You, petty bourgeoisie, must take your 'reeducation' seriously!" Until none of us had words. They Come Sometimes when you're walking in the street, returning home or leaving to see a friend, they come. They emerge from behind pillars and trees, a~ching you like a pack of hounds besieging a deer.

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