Many poets in ancient times liked to delve into Zen theory, Wang Wei was half-official and half-hidden, and many of his poems had Zen meanings, such as "walking to the end of the water, sitting and watching the clouds rise"; Liu Yuxi was degraded many times in his life, and gradually liked to participate in Zen theory, he once said, "Pick up talents with articles, talk about high people with Zen theory, the style is very elegant, and the conversation is full of taste." ”
Su Dongpo was even more willing to communicate with the Buddhist monks, and he also wrote some feelings, such as "The sound of the stream is the wide tongue, and the mountain color is not pure." Eighty-four thousand in the night, how he lifted like a man. It can be seen that many poets understand Buddhism, and many senior monks can write poems, and the following poem looks ordinary, but the Zen is profound.
One of the seven songs
Sui Dynasty Shifatai
Take a hoe with your bare hands and ride a buffalo on foot.
People passed over the bridge, and the bridge did not flow.
The Fatai monk was a native of Meizhou during the Sui Dynasty, and his family name was Lü. He first became a Taoist priest for more than ten years, and then returned to his heart to be kind, took refuge in Buddhism, and shaved his home at Xiang'er Temple. The monk Fatai was very religious, and once when the scriptures and money accidentally fell into the water together, he was anxious to promise a lot of money and call for people to salvage the scriptures, but he did not care about the money.
Fortunately, the scriptures were not damaged, but after that he cherished these Treasures so much that he not only hid them in sandalwood, but also recited them quietly every day.
The language of this poem is popular, but the meaning is profound. Literally, the hand is empty, but it seems to be holding a hoe, riding a buffalo while walking. Man crossed the bridge and saw that the bridge was flowing, but the water was still.
Of course, we can explain it from the point of view of relative motion, assuming that man is stationary, and the bridge is of course flowing. The first two sentences, on the other hand, leave the reader like a cloud in a fog, which can only be explained by understanding Zen principles.
The reader sees phenomena, but the poem describes the ontology, so to understand this Zen master thoroughly, we must first understand the relationship between the ontology and the phenomenon. Ontology refers to the object that exists independently outside of our consciousness, and phenomenon refers to the sensory appearance caused by the ontology acting on the human senses.
From the phenomenon observation, people walk on the bridge, only the water flows, the bridge does not flow! But the poet denies the phenomenon, and at the same time affirms the ontology, the Buddha-nature. So this poem is about pointing the reader to Buddha-nature by denying the phenomenon.
It can also be understood from another angle that phenomena are often false, and even things that you see with your own eyes (such as magic) are unreliable; while ontology is real, and even if you don't feel (such as electric or magnetic fields), you can't deny their objectivity.
We see that human hands are empty, but the poet says that he has grabbed the hoe, on the one hand we may see the illusion, on the other hand, the poet just wants to click us to understand Buddha-nature, to understand that nature is the truth of the true heart.
Zen masters have a higher realm, and the perspective of looking at problems is different, and poets recognize equality from differences and static from movement. As long as the heart is clear, the noisy place also has a sense of seclusion, and the world reaches a harmony in contradiction.
Things are not absolutely divided into two, there is movement in stillness, and there is stillness in movement. Zen is to find freedom in the vastly different universes, to remove the mind of difference, to discover the equality of all things. So whether the bridge is flowing or the water is flowing, it is the inner fluctuations.
Shifatai wrote many poems similar to the truth, on the one hand, recording his own cultivation experience, on the other hand, he also inspired future generations to think. For example, one of his poems reads, "There is nothing to live in life, and nothing to die to die." The wind moves and the dust flies, and the waves stop. Harmony is discrete and found everywhere. The full moon bends the bow, and the double eagle is an arrow. ”
Among them, the wind and dust flying, the waves and the waves stop and "the bridge does not flow", are the same as the same work, all of which teach everyone how to cultivate their self-cultivation and obtain Buddha-nature.