In the pure morning, near the old temple, Where early sunlight points the tree-tops, My path has wound, through a sheltered hollow Of boughs and fl.ewers, to a Buddhist retreat. Here birds are alive with mountain-light, And the mind of man touches peace in a pool, And a thousand sounds are quieted By the breathing of a temple-bell.
Original Poem:
「题破山寺后禅院」
清晨入古寺，初日照高林。
曲径通幽处，禅房花木深。
山光悦鸟性，潭影空人心。
万籁此俱寂，但余钟磬音。
Interpretation:
This poem uses a Buddhist temple and a Zen garden to express his secluded mind of forgetting the world and loving the landscape.
The poet climbed the mountain in the early morning and entered the Xingfu Temple when the sun was rising and the light was shining in the woods on the mountain. The Buddhist call the place where monks gather “jungle”, so “high forest” also means to praise the Zen temple, and in the scene of light shining on the mountain and forest, it shows the feelings of praising the Buddha. The poet then walks through the bamboo path in the temple to the deep backyard, where he finds the Zen room where the sutra is sung and the Buddhist rituals are deep in the flowering woods. Such a quiet and wonderful environment makes the poet amazed, enchanted, and forgetful to appreciate. He saw the green hills behind the temple glowing with sunlight and the birds flying freely and singing; he walked to the clear water pool and saw the heaven and earth and his own figure in the water, which was clear and empty.
At this moment and in this situation, the poet seems to have realized the mystery of the meditation of the empty door, free from all the worries of the earthly world, free and carefree like a bird. It seems that all other sounds of nature and the human world are silenced, only the sound of chimes and bells, which leads people into the realm of purity and happiness. The poet appreciates the beauty of this Zen garden, the mood of forgetting the mundane in this empty door, and his own feelings of hiding from the world.
Chang Jian (常建, 708-765 AD), probably a native of Chang’an (now Xi’an, Shaanxi), was a poet of the Tang Dynasty. In the 15th year of the Kaiyuan era (727 AD), he was admitted to the same list as Wang Changling, but he was unhappy with his career and lived a long life of wandering in the mountains and scenic spots. Later, he moved home and lived in seclusion in Ezhu. In the middle of Tianbao, he served as a lieutenant of Xuyi. Chang Jian’s surviving literary works are few, but his poem “A Buddhist Retreat behind Broken-Mountain Temple” is more famous.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
