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The poetry written by monks is a major feature of the ancient poetry world. From the Wei jin to the Six Dynasties, there were many Buddhist monks who could bard poetry, and monks who wrote poetry in the Tang and Song dynasties were even more numerous. Such as Wang Fanzhi, Hanshan, Kyaukran, Jia Dao, Qi Ji, Guan Xiu, etc. in the Tang Dynasty, Zhinan, Zhongshu, Qingshun, Daoqian and so on in the Song Dynasty.
Ancient monks wrote poems with two kinds of themes, one is to borrow poetry to express Zen principles, such as the poems of the Tang Dynasty poet Monk Wang Fanzhi is to use popular and straightforward poetry to express Buddhism; the other is pure literati poetry, or generous speech, or beautiful speech, or fresh writing scenes, such as the Song Dynasty Zhongshu's words light and wind jiyue like a scholar, Zhinan monk's "wet apricot blossom rain, blowing noodles cold willow wind" is even more beautiful and lovely, not like the Buddhist people.
The poetry of monks has been circulated in the world, and it is often the second type that is more loved by the world, and there are many good works and famous sentences. The first type of Buddhism and philosophy, most of them are unpopular and little known. With the exception of the philosophical poems of a monk in the Tang Dynasty, they are not only not unpopular, but also widely circulated, almost everyone knows and knows.
This poem is the Buddhist poem "Ode to the Teachings of the Upper Hall" written by the Tang Dynasty Zen master Huang Barberry:
The church preached the ode
Zen master Don Huang Barberry
Dust off the road very much,
Tighten the rope head to make a game.
Without a chill to the bone,
How to get plum blossoms.
Many famous verses are familiar to us and often hang on our lips, especially some inspirational verses, but often do not know the source and author of these verses. For example, "Without a cold bone, how to get plum blossoms", which has inspired countless people to work hard, there are many people who do not know its origin. This poem is from the Tang Dynasty's Huang Barberry Zen master's "Ode to the Teachings of the Upper Hall".
The author of this poem, Huang Barberry Zen Master, was a famous monk in the Tang Dynasty, whose dharma name was Xiyun, and was called Huang Barberry Zen Master because he lived in Huang Barberry Mountain. Zen master Huang Berberry founded the Linji Sect on the basis of Mahayana Buddhism and became the most influential and penetrating sect in Chinese Zen Buddhism. Most of the poems he wrote in his life were buddhist masters, so they were not widely circulated, but this "Ode to the Teachings of the Upper Church" was transmitted to everyone in the world.
The meaning of this poem is very simple, the first two sentences first explain the truth of the monks' enlightenment of the Dharma in an educational tone: "The dust and labor are very different, and the rope is tightly made"! It means that it is not an easy task to get rid of the red dust and the common thoughts, and you must tighten the rope and devote all your body, mind and energy.
The last two sentences use metaphors to give a very common example in life: "How can you get plum blossoms without going through a cold bone"! The use of plum blossoms experiencing bone-chilling cold and wind and snow to open up and emit fragrance is a metaphor for the difficulty of exploring the Dharma and experiencing the sufferings of the world. At the same time, the plum blossom is of high character, and the Yellow Barberry Zen Master also uses the plum blossom as a symbol to symbolize that people need to go through meditation and Buddha to make themselves as pure as plum blossoms.
This poem was originally composed by Zen master Huang Barberry to educate Buddhist disciples, but the last two sentences are popular and profound, and can be used by anyone in the world and anything, so it is widely circulated, and has become a regular proverb for people to admonish the children of their families, implying that people need to work hard first and experience all kinds of difficulties and dangers in order to achieve something and get fragrant fragrance!