Good morning everyone. Please turn to pages 52 to 60 of the book "Jiang Xun Talks about Tang Poems", and let us get closer to the poet Wang Wei.
Human rights and wrongs and human changes are very insignificant in nature. In Wang Wei’s view, green mountains and white clouds are eternal.
Ever since I returned to my hometown, I have fallen in love with pastoral poetry, and Wang Wei is my favorite among pastoral poets. And Mr. Jiang Xun also ranked Wang Wei before Li Bai, so our questions are:
1. Why did Wang Wei choose to retire?
2. Why is Wang Wei called the "Poetry Buddha"?
1
In terms of poetry, Li Bai was the first among the poets of the Tang Dynasty; in terms of comprehensive talent, Wang Wei was the first among the poets of the Tang Dynasty. Wang Wei was versatile and proficient in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and music, which made his poems rich in rhythm and beauty of painting.
Su Shi of the Song Dynasty commented: "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."
Jiang Xun was an art expert. An accomplished art master, he believes that beauty is like a kind of faith to him, and he uses his preaching mood to spread his feelings about beauty.
It must be precisely because of this that Master Jiang included Wang Wei, a pastoral poet and painter, in his "Jiang Xun Talks about Tang Poems" as the third chapter, and mentioned Before Li Bai.
Wang Wei is good at painting with sparse and light ink brushwork. His style is unique and unique. He is called the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting by later generations.
His paintings emphasize freehand brushwork and pursue spiritual resemblance. They do not emphasize realism but focus on expressing subjective emotions, so they have the charm and interest of poetry, that is, "there is poetry in the painting."
Wang Wei’s profound artistic qualities in painting, music, and calligraphy enabled him to feel and capture the beauty of nature more accurately and meticulously when creating poetry, and to incorporate Wonderful scenery and magical sound come to life in writing.
His poems have painting-like scenes and artistic conceptions, as well as natural and dynamic changes in calligraphy, thus forming his unique artistic style of "painting in poetry".
Wang Wei also devoted himself to Buddhism. In his later years, after retiring from the imperial court, he burned incense, sat silently, and recited Zen. Therefore, his poems are full of Zen interest, especially his landscape and pastoral poems.
Nowadays, people like to classify stars as "powerful" and "idol". In my heart, Wang Wei is the emperor superstar who combines strength and idol.
Posterity described Wang Wei's appearance as "white in his youth, and graceful and graceful", which can be said to have an outstanding temperament. He is good-looking, has a good command of poetry, chess, calligraphy, painting, and music. His family has a "Wangchuan Villa", and his official position is Shangshu Youcheng. What's more terrible is that he is also single-minded.
Ever since his wife died at the age of thirty-one, he has been a bachelor until his death. He has not heard any gossip. He is simply the best in the world.
2
Wang Wei is a very complex character. In the series of poems "Wangchuan Collection", we see a Wang Wei and a poetic Buddha.
Buddha or landscape are very important in Wang Wei’s world.
But in the Tang Dynasty, which was full of contradictions, every individual's life had many different pursuits - he might pursue the magnificence of the nobility, he might pursue the wandering and adventure of the chivalrous people, or he might pursue the life beyond the Great Wall. Wang Wei's exile has all these pursuits.
So, if you think that Wang Wei has only one appearance, it may be a very big misunderstanding.
Wang Wei was born in 701 AD, the same year Li Bai was born. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, literary stars descended one after another, and prodigies were everywhere, which is quite strange when you think about it.
Wang Wei became famous in Chang'an at the age of fifteen and was a guest of the princes and nobles. Reaching the top spot at the age of twenty seemed to indicate that he would be prosperous and prosperous from now on. He didn't expect what was waiting for him later - in fact, none of us knew what was waiting for us.
The first official position of the charming and elegant Number One Scholar was to teach official music and dance.
Later, because a member of the league took on private work, Wang Wei was demoted to be a warehouse manager for five years for management negligence. What a waste of natural resources, you don't need to think about it to know how depressed he is.
Wang Wei was once promoted after Zhang Jiuling, who wrote "The grass and trees have their own hearts, why should they ask for beauty?"
Reluctantly, at the end of Kaiyuan Dynasty, Zhang Jiuling, who was known as the "virtuous prime minister", was replaced by Li Linfu. Li Linfu was appointed Zhongshu Ling, which was a turning point in the Xuanzong period from a relatively clear political period to an increasingly dark one. It was also one of the reasons why Wang Wei finally retired to seclusion.
During the "Anshi Rebellion", Wang Wei was captured by An Lushan and forced to take up a pseudo post. Later, An Lushan failed, and those who had followed him or succumbed to him began to be punished by the court, and Wang Wei was imprisoned.
Fortunately, he had a younger brother named Wang Jin, who once helped Tang Suzong succeed to the throne. He cut his official position to save his brother's life, so Wang Wei had a way to survive.
Wang Wei, who took this incident as a life-long shame, began to intend to retire. He bought a villa in Wangchuan, Zhongnan, where he spent all day surrounded by mountains and rivers, practicing Zen and worshiping Buddha.
3
When Wang Wei reached middle age, he lived in seclusion in Wangchuan, Lantian. At that time, he probably just wanted to stay away from government affairs, stay away from the hustle and bustle, live in seclusion in the mountains and forests, and practice meditation. However, without thinking about him, he opened up A new school of Tang poetry, and became the originator of Tang Dynasty landscape and pastoral poetry.
At first glance at the masterpieces of this period, Wang Wei used his usual five characters and five rhythms to describe the natural landscape in outline, but after Mr. Jiang Xun’s interpretation, we discovered the plainness behind the mountains and rivers. , and also entrusts the poet's understanding of nature and understanding of life.
For example, "Mengcheng Ao" "At the entrance of Mengcheng Ao, the new home, the ancient trees are still decaying willows. Who will come again? It is sad that the people in the past are there."
Wang Wei in Mengcheng Ao A new home was built. This place used to be prosperous, but now it is deserted, with only some broken willow trees left around it.
"Who will come next?" Who else will build a home here in the future? After this home becomes prosperous, will it decline again?
When a once prosperous place has declined, it is called a ruin; but no one has ever thought that the prosperous place where they live now will one day become a ruin.
Wang Wei feels helpless and sad about life because he has seen prosperity and experienced the prosperous age of Kaiyuan.
Mr. Jiang Xun wrote in the book, "Poetry is just something that can calm you down in your saddest and most desperate moments.
Recently I met some students from my early years. , they have experienced prosperity, and some have suddenly changed, such as divorce, career failure, or the death of a loved one. Generally, when they are around forty years old, they begin to encounter these things in their lives. If you can think of these poems, you may have them. Facing the peace of life.
The role that poetry plays in life often becomes your concern at a certain moment. ”
4
Again. For example, in "Xinyiwu", "The hibiscus flowers bloom in the mountains with red calyxes. There is no one in the stream, and they bloom and fall one after another."
The Xinyi flowers in the mountains are blooming with red calyxes, and the flowers are blooming and falling. , should be a natural normal state. In Mr. Jiang's interpretation, Wang Wei tells us another state of life: Can we find back the moment when we "shine red calyx" for ourselves?
In the lonely mountains, without anyone coming, can it bloom and fall, fall and bloom again?
Here, we are talking about the completion of absolute personal life. This life does not exist for others, but exists for one's own existence. It is very simple.
We often live for others. I don’t know how you would live if you were the only one in this world.
After Wang Wei experienced great prosperity, he suddenly wished that he was a flower blooming in the mountains. No one would come to see it, and it would bloom and fall by itself. This is the essential phenomenon of life.
Mr. Jiang Xun feels that Wang Wei's poems are very similar to the lottery in the temple. He has always wanted to have a very small temple. There is a lotus tube in the temple, and the lotus drawn from the lotus tube contains four lines of poetry like this.
You can imagine, if you are emotionally frustrated and you draw a lottery like this, how would you understand it? If your career suddenly fails a little bit recently and you get such a lottery, how will you react?
I don’t know what the draw people will think, but it should be very interesting.
5
Another example is in "Luan Jia Lai" "In the rustling autumn rain, shallow rocks fell down. The jumping waves splashed on each other, and the egrets fell back in surprise."
< p>Wang Wei still described simple scenes of autumn rain, rapids, and egrets, but Mr. Jiang made me realize the poet's understanding of the ups and downs of life behind the words. The poet talks about the scenery objectively, but also Profoundly brings out a state of life.Let’s look at "Jianhu" again: "I play the flute at Lingjipu, and see my husband off at dusk. When I look back on the lake, the mountains are green and white clouds are curling up." The sound of the flute in the cave is far away, and the long sky is dusk. When I look back on the lake, the mountains are quiet and the clouds are flying. , no one was seen.
Human rights and wrongs and human changes are very insignificant in nature. In Wang Wei’s view, green mountains and white clouds are eternal.
Wang Wei's poems influenced later landscape paintings, and people were painted very small. Man is almost invisible in nature, just a very humble existence.
Most of Wang Wei's poems are about looking at mountains and rivers, seeing the essence of mountains and rivers, and the essence of life, which are very similar to Zen verses. He is a poetic Buddha who preaches, understands principles, realizes Zen, and reflects on himself in the mountains and rivers.
"There are no people in the empty mountain, but I can hear people's voices. Returning to the deep forest, the scenery shines on the moss again." This is Wang Wei in his later years.
He was too tired. After experiencing the great changes of the "Anshi Rebellion" and the rapid personal ups and downs, he "had many sad things in his life, and he would not sell them to the empty door." Although he may not be able to eliminate the endless sadness, he has completed it. It marks the transformation of landscape poetry from focusing on mystical interest to focusing on Zen interest.