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In later years, we wish to enjoy the quiet
So all the myriad things won’t worry the heart.
As for myself, I have no long-term plans:
I know that I’ll return to the ancient forest—
The wind in the pine trees will untie my sash,
The mountain moon will shine as I play my qin.
My prince asks, “How’s success or failure managed?”
The fisherman’s song is heard from far inshore.
酬张少府
晚年惟好静，
万事不关心。
自顾无长策，
空知返旧林。
松风吹解带，
山月照弹琴。
君问穷通理，
渔歌入浦深。
Wang Wei getting his Zen Master on. That’s only a little bit of a joke: in schools of criticism that elevate three master poets of the Tang, Li Bai is the Daoist, Du Fu the Confucian, and Wang Wei the Buddhist—and he was, indeed, an observant Buddhist, and strongly interested in the recently emergent Zen Buddhism, or as it’s called in Chinese, Chan. Idiom I partially rendered literally: “ten-thousand things” is, in Daoist cosmology, a term for all creation—IOW, All The Things. I’m uncertain in l.7 whether to understand “how failure or success is managed” or “whether failure or success is managed” —the relevant question word is missing. The former feels more in need of a Zen answer, so I went with that.
---L.
So all the myriad things won’t worry the heart.
As for myself, I have no long-term plans:
I know that I’ll return to the ancient forest—
The wind in the pine trees will untie my sash,
The mountain moon will shine as I play my qin.
My prince asks, “How’s success or failure managed?”
The fisherman’s song is heard from far inshore.
酬张少府
晚年惟好静，
万事不关心。
自顾无长策，
空知返旧林。
松风吹解带，
山月照弹琴。
君问穷通理，
渔歌入浦深。
Wang Wei getting his Zen Master on. That’s only a little bit of a joke: in schools of criticism that elevate three master poets of the Tang, Li Bai is the Daoist, Du Fu the Confucian, and Wang Wei the Buddhist—and he was, indeed, an observant Buddhist, and strongly interested in the recently emergent Zen Buddhism, or as it’s called in Chinese, Chan. Idiom I partially rendered literally: “ten-thousand things” is, in Daoist cosmology, a term for all creation—IOW, All The Things. I’m uncertain in l.7 whether to understand “how failure or success is managed” or “whether failure or success is managed” —the relevant question word is missing. The former feels more in need of a Zen answer, so I went with that.
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---L.