Never tired of looking at mountains all day long comes from "Visiting Zhongshan", the original text is as follows:
"Visiting Zhongshan"
Author: Wang Anshi (Song Dynasty)
I never get tired of looking at mountains all day long, and I buy mountains and stay in the mountains forever.
Mountain flowers have fallen and the mountains are still there, and the mountains and rivers are empty and empty.
『Translation』
I spent the whole day touring the mountains. The scenery was beautiful and ever-changing, and I never got tired of it. I bought this mountain forest and waited to grow old in the mountains.
Mountain flowers are blooming and falling, but the mountains have always stood erect. The streams in the mountains are empty and the mountains are free and peaceful.
『Comments』
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『Introduction to the author』
Wang Anshi (December 18, 1021 - May 21, 1086), named Jiefu, nicknamed Banshan, posthumous title, was named Duke of Jing. The world also calls him King Jinggong. Han nationality, a native of Linchuan, Fuzhou in the Northern Song Dynasty (now a native of Dengjia Lane, Linchuan District, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province), a famous politician, thinker, writer, and reformer in the Northern Song Dynasty, and one of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Ouyang Xiu praised Wang Anshi: "Three thousand poems about romance in the Hanlin Academy and two hundred years of articles in the official department. When I grow old, I still have self-pity, and who will compete with my son later." The collected works handed down include "Wang Linchuan Collection" and "Linchuan Collection". "Collections from Sichuan Collection" and so on. He is good at all styles of poetry and prose. Although he does not have many words, he is also good at it. He has famous works such as "Guizhixiang" and so on. The most popular poem by Wang Jinggong is "The spring breeze turns green again on the south bank of the river. When will the bright moon shine on me again?" in "Boancing at Guazhou".
『Appreciation』
This poem is one of the four seven-character quatrains in Wang Anshi's "Traveling to Zhongshan". In just twenty-eight characters, eight characters for "mountain" appear repeatedly. Such loops are repeated, making the reading catchy and ingenious. Du Lun, such poems are extremely rare in classical poetry. There is a poem "Qujiang after the Rebellion" written by Yang Shier of the Tang Dynasty, "I recall that in the past I used to visit the Qujiang River, and when spring came, there would always be people looking for spring. All the people who visited the spring were empty, and the pond was empty, until the spring was so deep that it was no longer like spring." There are five folds of the word "spring" in the poem. , it is extremely expressive when read, without any pretense or suspicion of repetition. And Wang Anshi's "Visiting Zhongshan" is even more surprising and unique.
The eight "mountain" characters are evenly distributed among the four sentences. This is obviously the poet's clever layout to show a gradual sense of hierarchy. But it is not static and without any mistakes. In the first two sentences, each word "mountain" is written in a different position of the seven words, and the second two sentences are in the same place. The form is both uneven and symmetrical, making it a masterpiece. There is a saying in classical poetry that "poems avoid emphasizing words". Firstly because of the meter, and secondly because the poems are short in length. It is already difficult to convey ideas and emotions. If words are used repeatedly, the problem will be that the poems are empty and unable to convey the meaning. . However, the poetic expression of Wang Anshi's "Travel to Zhongshan" is not only not compromised by repeated use of words, but also the meaning of the sentences are like overlapping words, interlocking with each other, and there is a deep meaning implicated in the mountain. Even if you don't delve into the poetic context, if you look at it as an ordinary retreat landscape poem, this is still a masterpiece.
“I never get tired of looking at mountains all day long.” After retiring as a hermit, Wang Anshi often rode a donkey around Zhongshan Mountain. However, he never got tired of being with the mountains and taking them as the scenery every day. One describes the beauty of Zhongshan Mountain, and the other describes the changes in the mountain. The mountains and rivers seem to be eternal, but if you appreciate it carefully like Wang Anshi, you will also see the rapid changes in Zhongshan. The flowers, plants, trees, birds, animals, snakes and insects are changing every day, every hour and every moment. Because of his love, he wanted to "buy a mountain and stay there forever". In fact, Wang Anshi was finally buried at the southern foot of Zhongshan Mountain.
Isn’t it the core idea of ??Zen Buddhism that “the flowers on the mountain will remain even after they have fallen”? Mountain flowers are used as a metaphor for all conditioned phenomena in the world, which are constantly changing and changing, just like mountain flowers, blooming and falling year by year. Again, Zhongshan is used to describe the original emptiness of the nature of dharmas. Because emptiness can only cause origin. Without emptiness, there is nothing. Being arises from the air. Just as if the skin did not exist, the hair would not be attached. If the mountain did not exist, where would the mountain flowers be? At the same time, only by dependent origin can we know the emptiness of nature. It is by witnessing the birth and death of mountain flowers that we can know the unshakability of mountains. "The mountains and rivers are empty and the mountains are leisurely." The water in the mountains is gurgling, tireless regardless of day or night, and it is endless and the beginning is unknown, but every movement is not as good as the stillness. The flow is empty, and only leisure is the free and easy nature. The whole poem seems to be about Zhongshan, but in fact it is about the poet's heart.
In fact, for such an exquisite landscape poem, perhaps the best way to appreciate it is to decipher it. There is no need to know the historical background, the poet's state of mind, or even to delve into the Zen meaning, or not to know who the poet is. After all, the poem only mentions landscapes, and it doesn’t matter the era or the background. Therefore, readers can understand themselves and see themselves, all living beings, and all the phenomena in their hearts in this seemingly simple landscape poem.
Is the mountain flower just a mountain flower, or is it the emptiness of Zen’s origin, or is it the glory and wealth that the poet has left behind...