Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
The birds have flown beyond the sky.
A last cloud wanders off, unhurried.
We sit, the mountain and me
Until only the mountain remains.
- Li Bai (Li Po, Li Bo, 701-762)
One if Li Bai’s quietest poems — a reflection on the permanence of time and the impermanence of life.
According to legend, while drifting on the Yangtze River one evening, Li Bai reached over the side of his boat to embrace the moon. Inebriated, he fell in and drowned.
- Journal Note
. . . . .
Silence thoughts, invite emptiness
Once submerged in emptiness,
The universe beckons.
- Journal Poem
. . .
For more, see The Tao Waits in Silence.