Travelogues and Scenic Descriptions
A Poem on Wandering at the Stone Gate, with Introduction
Laymen of Mount Lu Associated with Hui-yüan (344–416/17)
The Stone Gate is over ten tricents south of the vihāra,1 and is also known as Screen Mountain. Its base joins the great range of Mount Lu, and its form rises above the clustered hills. It constitutes the juncture of three streams; standing close together, it initiates their currents. The inclining cliffs darkly gleam from above; they receive their external shapes from Nature. On this account it was named the Stone Gate. Although this spot is but one corner of the Lu range, nonetheless it is the most extraordinary view of the region. All this was known through earlier accounts, but there were many who had never seen it themselves. This was perhaps due to the fact that the waterfall was so precipitous that trails for men and beasts were cut off, and, since paths wind about twisting hills, access was blocked and walking difficult. Hence few people have visited it.
In the second month of spring in the fourth year of Lung-an (400 C.E.), Shih Hui-yüan, the Master of the Doctrine, who had been hymning the landscape, accordingly took up his ringed abbot’s staff and wandered off. On this occasion there were some thirty men of like mind among his companions. Together we donned our robes and set off at dawn in low spirits but felt increasingly exhilarated. Although the forests were gloomy and valleys deep, we still broke a path through and vied to push forward. And ascending the heights and treading on rock we were wholly at ease through what gave us pleasure. On reaching the gorge, we pulled ourselves up by trees and grasped for creepers, traversing the perilous and plumbing the precipitous; only when arms, stretched apelike, were extended to each other did we advance to a summit. Thereupon, leaning against the cliff, we seized the view and clearly saw what was below, experiencing for the first time the beauty of the seven ridges and the gathering of exceptional sights in the spot.
The twin gate-towers soared up in opposition before us, while layered precipices gleamed about behind; peaks and hills twisted and turned to form a screen, and high cliffs built up on all sides to support the roof of heaven. Within there was a stone tower and a rocky pond, semblances of palace halls and representational shapes; it was all most pleasing.
Limpid brooks ran separately and poured together; pellucid depths were of a mirrorlike translucency in the Heavenly Pond. Patterned rocks displayed their colors, tangibly present in their glory, while tamarisks, pines, plants, and herbs dazzled the eyes with their luxuriance; all that constitutes spirited beauty was present.
On this day, various emotions hastened our enjoyment and we gazed at length without tiring. We had not looked about for long before the weather changed several times. In the dusty gathering of mist and fog, all things concealed their forms; in the reflected illumination of radiating light, the myriad peaks were inverted as mirrored scenery. At intervals of clearing, appearances had a numinous quality yet could not be fathomed.
When we went on to climb, hovering birds fluttered pinions and crying apes harshly clamored. Homing clouds, driving back, called to mind the visitations of feathered men;2 mournful cries blended in harmony like the lodging of mysterious tones. Even though they were heard only faintly, one’s spirit felt expansive. And, although in enjoying one did not expect delight, nonetheless happiness lasted throughout the day. At that time, this experience of empty pleasure truly had subtleness yet was not easy to define.
We then withdrew to seek an explanation. For, as the assembled beings in these cliffs and valleys lacked conscious selves, response was not through emotions. Yet they awakened an exhilaration that drew us onward to such an extent. Could it not be that emptiness and luminosity clarify reflections, and quietness and distance solidify the emotions? Altogether we repeated this discussion several times, and its subtlety was still inexhaustible.
Suddenly the sun announced evening, and this world was gone. We then became aware of the mysterious perception of world-renouncers and comprehended the true nature of enduring things: could it be merely the landscape that caused such divine pleasure? Thereupon, as we roamed on cliffs and precipices, shifting our gaze to scan all sides, the nine rivers3 were like a belt and foothills formed low mounds. From this one could deduce that as in forms there are large and small, so knowledge is also proportionate.
We then sighed deeply, lamenting that though the universe is of long duration, ancient and modern are of a piece. The Vulture Peak is far away, and the overgrown path is daily more impassable. Without the Sage,4 even though His influence and traces of His teaching still remain, His profound enlightenment must necessarily be remote. With feeling we reflected for a long while. As each of us was enjoying the shared happiness of a rare time, moved by an auspicious moment that would be hard to recreate, emotions burst forth from our midst, and we accordingly hymned them together:
Supermundane exhilaration is without root cause;
When one is moved by insight, exhilaration comes of itself.
Suddenly, as we heard of roaming at the Stone Gate,
These unusual lays brought forth our hidden feelings.
Plucking up our robes, we thought of cloud-charioteering immortals;
And gazing at precipices, we envisaged the tiered city of K’un-lun.
Spurring forward, we climbed up the great cliffs
Without perceiving the diminishing of substantial being.
Lifting up our heads, we ascended the cloudy gate-tower
As remote as if it reached to the Great Purity of heaven.
Seated upright, we turned the empty wheel of the mind,
Setting in motion the Norm from within Profundity.
Spirits and immortals share in the changes of all beings;
It is better that both self and others be altogether darkened in oblivion.
Translated by Susan Bush
The preface and accompanying poem on wandering at the Stone Gate Gorge of Mount Lu in 400 C.E. have long been associated with the charismatic Buddhist monk Hui-yüan and his community of monks and laymen who studied and practiced Buddhism on Mount Lu (Kiangsi province). Hui-yüan himself is referred to in the preface as “the Master of the Doctrine” and hence is unlikely to be the author. Among his influential literary lay disciples were two avid mountain-climbers who mention in their writings a Stone Gate that may be the Mount Lu Gorge. One was Tsung Ping (375–443), a Buddhist apologist, musician, and landscapist, who defended Hui-yüan’s doctrine of the immortal spirit and believed in the direct experience of a limitless universe newly conceived from the reading of Buddhist texts. The other was the poet Hsieh Ling-yün (385–433, see selection 21), a rugged individualist who nonetheless felt the need of an understanding mind with which to share his “landscape Buddhism,” a mystical insight into the natural order.
Like other sacred sites where spectacular scenery and fantastic rock formations were taken as a sign of the supernatural, Mount Lu had been hallowed by popular Taoism before it became a center of Buddhist learning, and appreciations of its views were already being written in Han times. Although the preface on the Stone Gate expedition offers an explicit definition of the experience of nature in a Buddhist context, it was evidently influenced by the famous “Preface to the Festival at the Orchid Pavilion,” written by Wang Hsi-chih (303–379) at the gathering of 353 C.E. in the Kuei-chi district (Chekiang province) (see selection 168). Like the poetry-writing contest during the spring purification festival at the Orchid Pavilion, the “landscape Buddhism” of Mount Lu was a communal experience of emotional release in a setting of great natural beauty. Esthetic impressions served to stimulate meditation or focus the mind in a manner similar to Hui-yüan’s devotional practice of visualizing the Buddha’s body. Hui-yüan also fostered a strong feeling of community among his lay disciples. In a collective vow made during the year 402 for rebirth in the Western Paradise, all present were to help one another ascend to the supernatural realm of the mountain paradise, “mindful of the principle of marching together!” The smaller group of men who climbed the Stone Gate two years earlier were moved to express their shared joy in a communal hymn.
The occasion described in the introduction to “A Poem on Wandering at the Stone Gate” requires little explanation. Interestingly enough, Hui-yüan and his companions are inspired to climb by poems on landscape. Through their efforts they gain a view, which is initially characterized in general terms; then they note the layout of mountain and rock formations that seem to indicate the palace grounds of the immortals. Illusory qualities of shapes are underlined by shifting light and atmospheric effects, and a feeling of spatial disorientation is given by the blurring of sense impressions. These accidental perceptions arouse a selfless delight, which is then analyzed by the group as the correct response to phenomena. At sunset the view from on high suggests the vast scale of the universe; in turn this stimulates thoughts of eternal time and the remoteness of the Buddha. After meditating on him for a while, the group is moved by a shared emotion to compose a poem on their experience. Despite a few Taoist references, it treats the climb up the cliffs of the Stone Gate as a stage in a spiritual ascent that leads through meditation to nirvana. In the preface, purification of the mind through the perception of emptiness allows it to respond correctly without emotion and to seek the merging with the universal spirit that was the aim of Hui-yüan’s teaching. A gradual detachment from illusory forms and an enlarging perspective that diminishes personal concerns are the qualities valued in the landscape experience.
1. The Tung-lin monastery. The Stone Gate Gorge is “the ravine with the waterfall” located on the western side of Mount Lu near the Tung-lin monastery.
2. The “feathered men” are Taoist transcendents.
3. Of Kiukiang, i.e., Chiu-chiang.
4. Śākyamuni Buddha.