Su Shi, a literary giant of the Northern Song Dynasty, made extraordinary achievements in poetry. He is also quite accomplished in calligraphy and painting. What attracts me most about him is not only his unique and admirable poetry, but also his kindness and optimism. Although he derogated Huang Huidan three times, he benefited the people wherever he went and was deeply loved by the people.
His words are fresh, refined and bold. In my heart, he is in a league of his own, and it is hard to find another one. "Rocks pierce through the sky, stormy waves crash on the shore, and thousands of piles of snow are rolled up" are his majesty; "Ten years of life and death are vast, without thinking, unforgettable, thousands of miles." "The solitary grave has no place to speak of desolation" is his deep love for his deceased wife; "It is as vast as Feng Xu riding the wind, but does not know where it stops; fluttering as if left alone in the world, emerging and ascending to immortality" is his leisurely feeling, "send a mayfly" In the sky and the earth, it is a drop in the ocean. I mourn for the brief moment of my life, and I envy the infiniteness of the Yangtze River." was his emotion...
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Received by the "Wutai Poetry Case". He was framed and almost died, but due to the efforts of Wang Anshi and others, he was demoted to Huangzhou and served as deputy envoy of regiment training. After Zhezong of the Song Dynasty came to the throne, he served as a bachelor of Hanlin, a bachelor of imperial examination, and a minister of the Ministry of Rites. He also went to Hangzhou, Yingzhou, Yangzhou, Dingzhou and other places. In his later years, he was demoted to Huizhou and Danzhou because of the new party's rule. Although he was demoted three times in his life, he never changed his original intention and was always broad-minded and humorous.
"Don't listen to the sound of beating leaves in the forest. Why not whistling and walking slowly? The bamboo stick and mango shoes are lighter than the horse. Who is afraid? A raincoat and a misty rain will last the rest of your life..." ("Ding Fengbo" ), this was written by Su Shi after he was demoted to Huangzhou after almost losing his life due to the "Wutai Poetry Case". At that time, it happened to be rainy while traveling, and the group of people were very embarrassed by the rain. Only Su Shi spoke of a life that is neither windy nor sunny. With emotion, this is his sentiment after experiencing countless setbacks and tribulations in life. This is a kind of transcendent optimism about life! Everyone is experiencing hardships, rain and snow, but he can be at peace with it, enjoy the hardships, and enjoy the wind and rain.
"When the mind is troubled, the hands are not idle, but when the hands are busy, the heart is happy." Although Su Dongpo was depressed in his exile, he did not do nothing. He is good at adjusting his mentality and always adapting to difficult situations.
For example, the classic story between him and Foyin. Foyin is an eminent monk, and the two often practice Zen and meditate together. Foyin was honest and always bullied by Su Shi. Su Shi was sometimes very happy when he took advantage. When he got home, he liked to talk to his talented sister Su Xiaomei.
One day, the two of them meditated together again. Su Shi asked, "What do you think I look like?" Foyin said, "I think you look like a Buddha." Su Shi laughed and said to Foyin, "Do you know what I think you look like sitting there? Just live. Like a pile of cow dung." This time, Foyin suffered the loss of being dumb again.
When Su Shi went home, he showed off this matter in front of Su Xiaomei.
Su Xiaomei sneered and said to her brother: "With your understanding, you still practice Zen. Do you know what people who practice Zen pay attention to most? It is to see the heart and nature. What you have in your mind is what you see. Foyin said If you look like a Buddha, that means he has a Buddha in his heart; if you say that the Buddha's seal looks like cow dung, then you have cow dung in your heart!" Grandpa Dongpo was speechless. He is such a lovely old man.
It is also an interesting story with Su Xiaomei: one day Su Dongpo made a joke about his sister's appearance, describing his sister's convex forehead and concave eyes as follows:
Three or five steps before leaving the hall, the forehead first came to the painting hall; (My sister’s forehead was high and plump. Before she came out, her forehead reached the front of the hall first.)
Her tears were so deep that it was difficult to wipe them away several times, leaving two pools of water. (sarcasm for my sister’s sunken eyes, which made her tears flow like a waterfall.)
But the resourceful Su Xiaomei also discovered that her brother’s forehead was flat and had no sense of majesty. He also had a horse face, one foot long. The two eyes are far apart, and the facial features are all out of proportion. I immediately wrote another poem happily:
The sky is flat and the earth is wide, and the road is three thousand, looking at the distance between my eyebrows and the clouds and Han;
Last year, a drop of tears of lovesickness could not flow down my cheeks till now.
Su Shi was so happy that he patted his sister on the head and laughed. The close relationship between the two siblings is evident in their quick reflexes and writing skills.
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Su Shi himself was also a gourmet. There are many records of Su Shi's invention of gourmet food in Song Dynasty notebook novels.
When Su Shi learned about Hangzhou, in May and June of the fifth year of Yuanyou, there was heavy rain in western Zhejiang and Taihu Lake flooded. Su Shi directed the dredging of the West Lake and the construction of Su dikes. The people of Hangzhou thanked him. During the Chinese New Year, everyone would carry pigs and wine to pay him New Year greetings. Su Shi instructed his family to cut the pork into cubes, cook it until red and crispy, and then distribute it to everyone. This is the origin of "Dongpo Pork".
"Life is like an adverse journey, and I am also a traveler." This is his famous line in "Linjiang Immortal: Sending Money to Mu Fu", and Li Bai also said the same thing in "Spring Night Banquet from Brother Peach Garden Preface": "Heaven and earth are the reverse journey of all things, and time is the passer-by of hundreds of generations." Since everyone is a passer-by between heaven and earth, if travelers are either separated by life or by death, why should we care about the gatherings and separations in front of us? What about Jiangnan and Jiangbei? Nowhere in life do we not meet.
"People have joys and sorrows, and the moon waxes and wanes." If you can have a positive and optimistic attitude, then separation and reunion are normal for people, so why worry about it? This is his relief for the separation, his longing for meeting each other, and the whole poem is summarized with his comfort and relief for his friends. It is not only emotional, but also reveals his attitude towards life in which he forgets both gains and losses and integrates all things.
Although Su Shi was active in the world and had distinct political ideals and opinions throughout his life, he was deeply influenced by the thoughts of Lao, Zhuang, and Buddhism. Whenever he was frustrated in officialdom and was in a difficult situation, he could always "Wandering outside of things", "going nowhere without being happy", dealing with the external disturbances with a calm, elegant and comfortable attitude, showing a broad-minded, free and easy mood of being detached from things and being at peace with the situation.
I found the connection between their thoughts in the poems of the landscape and pastoral poet Wang Wei in "Zhongnan Farewell". And Su Shi commented on him: "When you taste Mojie's poems, there are paintings in the poems; when you look at Mojie's paintings, there are poems in the paintings." (Wang Wei's courtesy name Mojie)
He was quite good at Taoism in his middle age, and later in life Nanshan Frontier.
Every time you come or go alone, you will know your victory in vain.
Walk to a water-poor place and sit down to watch the clouds rise.
I happened to visit Lin Sou, and we chatted and laughed for a long time.
"Walking to a poor place, sit and watch the clouds rise. Walking to a poor place, sit and watch the clouds rise..." Whenever I read this poem, I feel filled with emotion. This is One of my favorite poems is full of philosophical meaning. Wang Wei and Grandpa Dongpo have a resonance that transcends time and space in terms of optimism, broad-mindedness, and detachment. What kind of experience and vision can a person have such a mentality?
Wang Wei's poems and paintings are full of Zen meaning and visual sense. The general meaning of this poem is: when climbing a mountain, you go upstream, and the stream disappears at the end. The climber simply sat down and saw clouds rising over the mountain. It turns out that the water has reached the sky and turned into clouds. The clouds can turn into rain, and then there will be water in the mountain streams again.
Since all things cycle and transform into each other, why should we despair when we are at the end of our rope? The same is true for the realm of life. The process from water to cloud to rain is just like a person encountering great difficulties in the process of practice, including physical obstacles, psychological obstacles, and environmental obstacles. There was nothing when we set out, but if we look back at the situation then and look at the present, haven't we already come a long way?
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Whenever I feel helpless, Grandpa Dongpo’s majestic poems linger in my mind. I believe that his optimistic attitude has influenced some people through thousands of years of time and space. A person's attitude towards life and his words are also a dense and colorful part of the big picture of Chinese culture.