"看官：你道此書從何而起？說來雖近荒唐，細玩頗有趣味。" -Cao Xueqin, 红楼梦
"Gentle Reader: What, you may ask, was the origin of this book? Though the answer to this question may at first seem to border on the absurd, reflection will show that there is a good deal more in it than meets the eye."
"满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！
都云作者痴，谁解其中味？" -Cao Xueqin, 红楼梦
"Pages full of idle words
Penned with hot and bitter tears:
All men call the author fool;
None his secret message hears."
"假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。"
"Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real when the unreal's real."
“一身之病。泪光点点，娇喘微微。闲静时如姣花照”
― Cao Xueqin, 红楼梦
"Sickness all over the body. Tears a little, panting slightly. When you are quiet, it is like a beautiful flower."
“There seems to be plenty of it,' was all I would answer, when the investigator asked me to say what I felt about time.”
― Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
"“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite."
-William Blake
Our linguistic habits lead us into error. For example, we are apt to say, 'I imagine', when what we should
have said is, 'The curtain was lifted that I might see'.
-Aldous Huxley
The sky's water has fallen, and autumn clouds are thin,
The western wind has blown ten thousand li.
This morning's scene is good and fine,
Long rain has not harmed the land.
The row of willows begins to show green,
The pear tree on the hill has little red flowers.
A hujia pipe begins to play upstairs,
One goose flies high into the sky.
-Tu Fu
望 嶽
gaze sacred peak
岱 宗 夫 如 何
Exalt Mt. ancestor then like what
齊 魯 青 未 了
Ch’i Lu blue/green never end
造 化 鍾 神 秀
create change concentrate divine beauty
陰 楊 割 昏 曉
yin yang cleave dusk dawn
盪 胸 生 曾 雲
heaving chest birth layers cloud
決 貲 入 歸 鳥
burst eye enter return bird
會 當 凌 絕 頂
soon when reach extreme summit
一 覽 衆 山 小
one glance all mountains small
一雁入高空
Gazing at the Sacred Peak
What is this ancestor Exalt Mountain like?
Endless greens of north and south meeting
where Changemaker distills divine beauty,
where yin and yang cleave dusk and dawn.
Chest heaving breathes out cloud, and eyes
open dusk bird-flight home. One day soon,
on the summit, peaks ranging away will be
small enough to hold, all in a single glance.
-Tu Fu
The Question of Heaven (The Songs of Ch'u: 3rd c. B.C.E.)
1
From the far origin of all antiquity,
who hands the story down to us?
2
Before heaven and earth take shape,
how do you delve into what’s there?
3
When light and dark are still a blur,
who can see through to their source?
4
When it’s altogether primal chaos,
how do you see the shape of things?
5
Blazing radiance and utter darkness
and nothing more: how did it happen?
One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures,
One Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities.
The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water,
And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one Moon.
The Dharma-body '(the Absolute) of all the Buddhas enters into my own being.
And my own being is found in union with theirs. . . .
The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame;
Like space it knows no boundaries,
Yet it is even here, within us,
ever retaining its serenity and fullness.
It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it; You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it, And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way. You remain silent and it speaks; you speak, and it is dumb; The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it.
-Yung-chia Ta-shih
What is man ? An angel, an animal, a void, a world, a nothing surrounded by God, indigent of God, capable of God, filled with God, if it so desires.
-Bérulle
Ah, my God, I see all gods within your body;
Each in his degree, the multitude of creatures;
See Lord Brahma seated upon his lotus,
See all the sages and the holy serpents.
Universal Form, I see you without limit,
Infinite of eyes, arms, mouths and bellies
See, and find no end, midst or beginning. Now with frightful tusks your mouths are gnashing,
Flaring like the fires of Doomsday morning
North, south, east and west seem all confounded
Lord of devas, world's abode, have mercy ! . . .
Swift as many rivers streaming to the ocean,
Rush the heroes to your fiery gullets,
Moth-like to meet the flame of their destruction.
Headlong these plunge into you and perish. . . .
Tell me who you are, and were from the beginning,
You of aspect grim. O God of gods, be gracious.
Take my homage, Lord. From me your ways are hidden.
'Tell me who you are.' The answer is clear and unequivocal.
I am come as Time, the waster of the peoples,
Ready for the hour that ripens to their ruin.
'I was sitting on the seashore, half listening to a friend arguing violently about something which merely
bored me. Unconsciously to myself, I looked at a film, of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite beauty of every little grain of it; instead of
being dull, I saw that each particle was made up on a perfect geometrical pattern, with sharp angles, from
each of which a brilliant shaft of light was reflected, while each tiny crystal shone like a rainbow. . . . The
rays crossed and recrossed, making exquisite patterns of such beauty that they left me breathless. ... Then,
suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole universe
was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were
nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a
blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly
reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us.' -George Russell
