Two Ancient-Style Pentasyllabic Poems: The Floating World Abounds in Clumsy Intentions / Unborn, Yet Joy Fills Every Day

2006/9/3 11:49:50

I

The floating world abounds in clumsy schemes — calculations always miss the mark

Looking up or bowing down, truth is also false — rising or sinking, what is, is not

True and false both lack meaning — right and wrong both go astray

Riding a crane to Yangzhou — chasing deer toward the capital

The crane soars, both wings snap — the deer dies, how many return?

Spring returns, willows green — winter solstice, rain and snow drift

Blue waters cross the mountains — a white horse flies past the gap

Whose heart observes sun and moon? — Whose ears heed mockery?

All things are originally illusion — crane and deer cannot be prayed for

I climb those southern mountain stones — how towering the southern hills!

Winding through forest, ridge, and thicket — paths crisscross, wheat sprouts lush

Jagged peaks conceal auspicious beasts — slopes tread with brocade banners

High cliffs spread cool shade — deep ravines brim with white angelica

Heaven cracks, sudden rain pours — startled clouds scatter the light

Gale winds snap coiling trees — rushing floods breach stone banks

Horned dragons dance golden claws — welded sockets shed jade beads

Mountains shaved a thousand feet of earth — seas drain ten thousand encirclements

Where mountain and sea reach their end — moonlight, stars not yet sparse

Flowing light plays five colors — sword-qi brushes rainbow robes

Among clouds, lush gentle trees — at ravine bottoms, dense fragrant growth

Heaven and earth pocketed in sleeves — sun and moon tiny amid dust

Spurring the horse to hunt autumn plains — casting the rod to fish summer shoals

Sometimes a mayfly's death — sometimes a dragon-tiger's might

Vast without clear or turbid — serenely tuning the zither's silk

II

Unborn, joy fills every day — whence comes the doubt of life and death?

Where there is doubt, it's from fearing possession — where there is fear, it tangles like silk

Floating clouds: fame of ten thousand ages — dung: monuments of a thousand years

This body has nowhere to lodge — not yet dwelling, already departed

Soft willows by the riverside — calling deer amid the woods

Every day is a good day — every hour is the hour of flowers

Tides rise and tides fall — the moon waxes and the moon wanes

The world has no great affairs — what need for action or inaction?

Do not steal the pearl upon the dust — do not cling to wonders within the Dharma

The bright pearl — how could it belong to "having"? — To say "nothing" is also foolish

Neither having nor nothing can stand — one is still in ghostly thought

Sit and watch heaven and earth turn — stand and watch heaven and earth hang low

Wild geese travel, wind crosses water — flowers fall, moon visits the branch

Each dharma is without defilement — each mote of dust is not abandoned

Vast and open, transcending the mundane and the holy — serenely entering joy and sorrow

Life and death rest on a single smile — purity and filth, both let them be

Death and life — the grace of all beings — purity and filth — the compassion of all beings

Empty flowers perform Buddha's work — illusory mirrors play tricks on demons

Through kalpas, a thousand bodies go — to hardship, one vow follows

Avici Hell — empty or not yet empty — Bodhi — awaited or not yet awaited

The zither song, naturally vast and serene — do not peer into the moon