uan Tsung and his “precious consort,” Yang Kuei-fei (see selections 149 and 150).The Autobiography of Instructor Lu
Lu Yü (733–804)
Master Lu’s name was Yü and his style was Hung-chien. It is not known where he was from. Some say that his style was Yü and that his name was Hung-chien, but it is impossible to know who is right. His appearance was as ugly as that of Wang Ts’an 1 or Chang Tsai 2 and he stammered like Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju 3 or Yang Hsiung,4 but he was talented and persuasive and had a sincere and trustworthy character. He was narrow-minded and irritable, showing a great deal of subjectivity in his opinions. When his friends reproved him, however, he could be more open-minded and less suspicious. If he were living with another person and got the inclination to go somewhere else, he would leave without saying anything, causing others to suspect that he was born full of anger. But if he had an agreement with another person, he would never fail to keep his word, even if it meant traveling a thousand tricents through ice and snow over roads infested by wolves and tigers.
At the beginning of the Superior Origin reign period (760–761), Lu Yü built a hut by the bank of Grandiflora Stream.5 He closed his door and read books, refusing to mix with rogues, though he would spend whole days chatting and convivializing with eminent monks and lofty scholars. Often, he would travel back and forth between various mountains and monasteries in his little slip of a boat, clad only in a gauze kerchief, vine sandals, a short shirt of coarse wool, and a pair of underpants. He would frequently walk alone in the wilderness reciting Buddhist scriptures or chanting ancient poems. Striking the forest trees with his staff or dabbling in the flowing water with his hand, Lu Yü might dilly-dally hesitantly from morning until evening and on into the darkness of night after the sun had gone completely down, whereupon he would return home wailing and weeping. So the southerners would say to each other, “Master Lu must be today’s Madman of Ch’u.”6
An abandoned waif at the age of three, Lu Yü was taken in and raised in the Ching-ling meditation7 monastery by the great teacher Chi-kung. From the age of nine he learned how to write and Chi-kung revealed to him the occupation of escaping from the world that was described in the Buddhist books. In reply, the lad said to him, “To be cut off from one’s brothers, to have no further descendants, to wear a cassock and shave one’s head, to call oneself an adherent of Śākyamuni 8—if the Confucians were to hear of this, would they proclaim it to be filial behavior? Would it be all right if I request that you teach me the writings of the Confucian sages?”
“It’s excellent,” said the elder, “that you wish to show your filial devotion, but you have no idea at all how great is the meaning of the Way of the tonsure and cassock from the West.” The elder obdurately insisted that Lu Yü study the Buddhist canon, and Lu Yü obdurately insisted that he study the Confucian canon. Consequently, the elder feigned not to love the youngster any longer and tested him with a series of demeaning tasks. He had him sweep the monastery grounds, clean out the monks’ toilet, mix mud with his feet to plaster on walls, carry tiles on his back and build rooms, and herd thirty head of cattle. At Ching-ling and around West Lake, there was no paper for the lad to practice writing, so he would trace characters on the backs of the cattle with a piece of bamboo.
One day, Lu Yü asked a learned person about some characters and the person gave him a copy of Chang Heng’s 9 “Rhapsody on the Southern Capital.” The lad could not recognize the characters of the rhapsody, but there in the pasture he imitated the little boys who were students. He would sit up straight with the scroll unrolled before him and move his mouth, but that was all. When the elder learned of this, he was afraid that the lad was gradually becoming infected by heretical texts and thus daily growing more distant from the Way. So he confined him to the monastery and ordered him to cut away the overgrown bushes and weeds under the supervision of the head gateman.
From time to time, a character would come to mind, and then Lu Yü would fall into a stupor as though he were lost. He might spend a whole day standing there disheartened like a wooden post and doing nothing. The supervisor thought he was lazy and struck him with a whip. The result was that the lad sighed over the passing of the months and years, fearing that he would never acquire the knowledge that was in books, which caused him to sob uncontrollably. The supervisor thought that he harbored resentment and whipped him on the back until his cane broke. Because he was weary of these labors, the lad escaped from the supervisor and ran away. With only a few extra items of clothing rolled up in a bundle, he joined a variety troupe. While with them, he wrote “Jests” in three chapters. As an actor, he played the role of the phony blockhead clerk who hides a pearl.
Upon finding him, the elder said, “When I think how you have become lost to the Way, how sad it is! Our founding teacher had a saying that, in a twenty-four hour day, a disciple was only permitted to study two hours of non-Buddhist subjects so that heretical teachings might be overcome. Since there are so many people in our monastery, I’ll let you do as you wish now. You may also study miscellaneous subjects and practice your calligraphy.”
During the Heavenly Jewel reign period (742–755), some people from Ch’u held a feast in the circuit of Ts’ang-lang.10 The district subofficial functionary invited Lu Yü to be the director of the entertainers who were hired for the occasion. At the time, Li Ch’i-wu, administrator of Honan, had been appointed governor of Ts’ang-lang and was in attendance at the feast. He considered Lu Yü to be someone of extraordinary talent, so he shook his hand and patted him on the back, then personally presented him with his own poetry collection. Thereupon the common people of the Han and Min valleys also considered Lu Yü to be extraordinary.
After that, Lu Yü carried his books to the villa of Master Tsou on Firegate Mountain. This happened to be just when the director of the ministry of rites, Ts’ui Kuo-fu,11 was appointed adjutant of Ching-ling commandery. Altogether, Lu Yü and he enjoyed each other’s company for three years. During this period, Lu Yü was presented with a white donkey, a jet-black pack ox, and a bookcase made of patterned pagoda tree wood. The white donkey and pack ox were given to him by Li Ch’eng, the governor of Hsiang-yang; 12 the bookcase of patterned pagoda tree wood was a present from the late vice-director of the chancellery, Lu. These three things were all much cherished by the recipient himself. Realizing that they are well suited for riding and storing by rural folk, that is why they gave me these items in particular.
At the beginning of the Highest Virtue reign period (756–757), refugees13 from Shensi fled south of the Yangtze and Lu Yü also went south at that time. There he developed a friendship with the monk Chiao-jan14 that ignored their difference in age and religious status.
From the time he was young, Lu Yü enjoyed writing, mostly in a satirical vein. If he saw people do something good, he would feel as though he himself had done it; but if he saw people do something bad, he would feel as though he were ashamed of himself. “Bitter medicine is hard to swallow; bitter words are hard to hear”—since there was nothing that he would shy away from saying, the average person kept out of his way. In response to An Lu-shan’s 15 rebellion in the Central Plains, he wrote a poem entitled “Quadruple Sorrow” and, in response to Liu Chan’s insurrection 16 in the region west of the Huai River, he wrote “Rhapsody on the Unclarity of Heaven.” All these pieces were inspired by his passionate reaction to current events, which caused him to weep and snivel. His other writings include The Contract Between Ruler and Subject in three scrolls, Genealogy of Four Surnames from South of the Yangtze in eight scrolls, An Account of Men of Distinction from North and South in ten scrolls, A Record of Successive Officials in Wu-hsing in three scrolls, A Historical Record of the Prefecture of Ch ’ao-chou in one scroll, Tea Classic in one scroll, and The Divination of Dreams in three scrolls (A, B, C), all of which he keeps in a coarse cloth sack.
Composed during the second year of the
Superior Origin reign period (761),
when Lu Yü was twenty-nine years of age.
Translated by Victor H. Mair
This is the extraordinary self-account of the enormously influential founder of the tea cult.
1. A famous writer (177–217) from the kingdom of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period.
2. Another famous writer of the kingdom of Wei (third century).
3. See selection 129.
4. See selection 161.
5. In the northern part of Chekiang, it rises in the vicinity of Celestial Eye mountain (T’ienmu shan) and flows into Lake T’ai.
6. Chieh-yü, an eccentric of the Spring and Autumn period who is noted for having taunted Confucius with a wild song about the phoenix.
7. Sanskrit dhyāna = Japanese Zen, Chinese Ch’an.
8. The Buddha.
9. A famous writer, especially of rhapsodies (see selections 122 ff.), and inventor who lived during the Eastern Han period. His dates are 78–139.
10. In the modern-day province of Hupei.
11. A T’ang poet and official.
12. In Hupei.
13. Escaping from the An-Shih rebellion (see selection 149).
14. A well-known Buddhist poet (730–799).
15. Roxsan the Arsacid, of Sogdian-Turkish ancestry, had been a favorite of the T’ang emperor Huan Tsung and his “precious consort,” Yang Kuei-fei (see selections 149 and 150).
16. This occurred in 760.