34. Early Morning, Reading Zen Scriptures at Monk Chao's Temple

A poem by Liu Zongyuan, translated by Hyun Woo Kim

I draw water from the well, brush my teeth cold,

Clean my heart, and dust off my clothes.

Idly carrying the palm-leaf scriptures,

I walk to the eastern building to read it.

The true source has never been grasped;

Vain traces are what the world goes after.

The remaining words, I hope, shall go dark;

How can one become skilled in sewing his nature?

An ascetic's inner garden is static;

The moss' color continues deep into the bamboo trees.

At sunrise, the fog and the dews are ample;

The pines are as if they anointed their heads.

Silently, one will leave the words and theories.

Realizing and rejoicing that the heart is content by itself.

「 晨詣超師院讀禪經」

汲井嗽寒齒

清心拂塵服

閒持貝葉書

步出東齋讀

真源了無取

妄跡世所逐

遺言冀可冥

繕性何由熟

道人庭宇靜

苔色連深竹

日出霧露餘

青松如膏沐

澹然離言說

悟悅心自足

From Hyun Woo:

I will be completely honest today. Out of thirty-four Tang poems I have translated so far, I feel least confident about today’s poem. Before we get to why I feel quite lost though, let me explain just two things: first, drawing water from a well and brushing one’s teeth early in the morning was one of the methods of Buddhist asceticism, and second, “palm-leaf scriptures” refer to Buddhist scriptures since the early Buddhist scriptures were written down on palm leaves in India. Liu Zongyuan wouldn’t have been holding literal palm leaves in his hands.

Those who at least know modern Chinese will be able to understand that Tang poetry can be quite vague in what it means, which arises from its equivocal syntax and word usage. For instance, the literal translation of the first line in its word order is: draw-well-brush-cold-teeth. Thus, when I translate this line consisting of five characters into “I draw water from the well, brush the teeth cold”, I am making an interpretation that makes sense, considering the context. Still, this may as well be interpreted as ‘I drew water from the well, brushed the teeth cold’ or ‘he draws water from the well, brushes the teeth cold’, and so on in theory.

Nevertheless, textual, cultural, and historical contexts are often enough for me to not make an ‘incorrect’ translation at least, and let me go with the most plausible interpretation. However, with today’s poem, there are parts where I am not so sure my translation is quite plausible. It is mostly because Liu Zongyuan was a very interesting and complicated man. He was obviously interested in Buddhism as you can see in the poem above, but considered it to be compatible with Confucianism, unlike his contemporaries like Han Yu, and even read much Taoist literature too. On top of that, following Mao, the official narrative of the Chinese Communist Party stated that Liu Zongyuan “adhered to materialism”. It is true that communists often have a tendency to depict many historical figures as proto-Marxists, but Liu Zongyuan does have such an aspect that rejects mysticism and appeals to common sense, while looking for the fundamental source of beings in qi (氣, vital, material energy or manifestations), not li (理, forms or rules).

Now let’s look at the line which I translated as “The remaining words, I hope, shall go dark”, for instance (its character-by-character translation: remain-word-hope-can-dark). It seems many scholars think “the remaining words” refer to the teaching of Buddha and “go dark” describes a certain nonverbal, instantaneous enlightenment. But is it really so, if Liu Zongyuan goes on to write that “one will leave the words and theories”? Or did other commentators or I misunderstand what Liu Zongyuan meant, which in part led to a mistranslation by me? And what about “sewing his nature?” It is possible that “繕性”, which I translated as “sewing his nature”, is a direct quote from Zhuangzi. Could it be that Liu Zongyuan is suddenly taking a Taoist turn? Or is it merely a coincidence that Zhuangzi and Liu Zongyuan used the same phrase “繕性”? And should his Confucian and/or “materialist” sides be also considered here or not? I cannot come to definite conclusions regarding such matters, and this is why I am rather unsure about my translation today.

What a long ramble! If you are well-versed in Zen Buddhist thoughts of the Tang Dynasty, please let me know. At this point, I suspect that my confusion mostly stems from my limited understanding of Zen Buddhism and Liu Zongyuan’s thoughts, but it is still only a suspicion.

If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.