Wen Fu 2: “Introspection” [文賦二] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/ Audio]

Close your eyes and listen with care.
Turn all your attention inside.
Let your soul ride the Eight Borders
At a galloping stride.

Inner space brightens, becomes more
Compact, as one views the expanse.
Words pour forth to cleanse the soul,
As the Six Arts lend a fragrance.

Float, swim, and dive in the abyss,
Heedful for words as it all soaks in...
Sometimes the right word must be hooked,
And hauled up where it can be spoken.
But, other times, words are like birds,
That fly themselves out of the clouds,
To be downed by one swift arrow --
Quite willingly freed of their shrouds.

Mine for lines lost ages ago --
Rhymes unsung for ten centuries.
Thank tight buds for the sweet flowers
That they - soon enough - will be.

See past and present concurrently,
At once, touch mountain and sea.

The Original in Simplified Chinese:

其始也,皆收视反听,耽思傍讯,精骛八极,心游万仞。

其致也,情曈曨而弥鲜,物昭晣而互进。

倾群言之沥液,漱六艺之芳润。

浮天渊以安流,濯下泉而潜浸。

于是沈辞怫悦,若游鱼衔钩,而出重渊之深;
浮藻联翩,若翰鸟缨缴,而坠曾云之峻。

收百世之阙文,采千载之遗韵。

谢朝华于已披,启夕秀于未振。

观古今于须臾,抚四海于一瞬。

Wen Fu 1: “Poetic Experience” [文賦一] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/ Audio]

The poet stands in the Center
And stares into deep mysteries.
He's nourished by reading Classics
And tombs of the men in Histories.
He sighs as four seasons pass by
And thinks upon ten-thousand things.
He's saddened by Autumn's leaf drop
And gladdened by the tender Spring.
He feels Winter's frost on his heart,
Though his mind may be up in a cloud.
And when he sings of ancestors'
Heroic deeds, he belts the song aloud.
He combs through great literature
Just as he roams the forest wild,
But in search of a "natural" --
Shown in elegant phrase and style.
And it's just such thoughts and feelings
That set my brush and mind wheeling.

The Original Chinese:

佇中區以玄覽,頤情志於典墳。
遵四時以嘆逝,瞻萬物而思紛。
悲落葉於勁秋,喜柔條於芳春,
心懍懍以懷霜,志眇眇而臨雲。
詠世德之駿烈,誦先人之清芬。
游文章之林府,嘉麗藻之彬彬。
慨投篇而援筆,聊宣之乎斯文。

“The Joy of Words” by Lu Ji [w/ Audio]

Writing is joy --
so saints and scholars all pursue it.

A writer makes new life in the void,
knocks on silence to make a sound,
binds space and time on a sheet of silk
and pours out a river from an inch-sized heart.

As words give birth to words
and thoughts arouse deeper thoughts,
they smell like flowers giving off scent,
spread like green leaves in spring;
a long wind comes, whirls into a tornado of ideas,
and clouds rise from the writing-brush forest.

Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala.

“A One-String Harp” by Lu Ji [w/ Audio]

When an author composes too short a poem,
it trails off with a lonely feeling
like looking down at solitude with no friends
or peering into the vast sky, disconnected.
One string on a harp is crisp and sweet
but sings without resonance and harmony.

Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in: The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala Publications.

FIVE WISE LINES [November 2024]

Inspiration enters at the border between hard work and laziness.

Lu juren in “Poets’ jade splinters” [Trans. by Barnstone and Ping in The ART Of Writing]

I will not own anything that will one day be a valuable antique.

Miyamoto musashi in “My way of walking alone” [Dokkōdō] (Trans. by Teruo machida)

A house full of gold and jade can’t be guarded.

Laozi in the DAo De jing [Ch. 9]

Writing is a struggle between presence and absence.

Lu ji in The ART of Writing [Trans. by Barnstone and ping]

The best leaders remain unknown; the next best are praised; the next best are feared, and the worst are mocked.

Laozi in dAo de Jing [Ch.17]

Five Wise Lines (March 2024)

We are pattern seekers, believers in a coherent world, in which regularities appear not by accident but as a result of mechanical causality or someone’s intention.

Daniel kahneman; Thinking, Fast and slow

If you win, do not boast of your victory; if you lose, do not be discouraged. When it is safe, do not become careless; when it is dangerous, do not fear. Simply continue down the path ahead.

Kanō Jigorō; Founder of Jūdō

A writer makes new life in the void, knocks on silence to make a sound, binds space and time on a sheet of silk and pours out a river from an inch-sized heart.

Lu Ji; Wen Fu (261 – 303)

The worst kind of Virtue never stops striving for Virtue, and so never achieves Virtue.

Laozi

Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon. // How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.

Rumi