Withdrawn in Nature: Wang Wei’s Enlightenment
- Jun 1
- 5 min read
Notes from the Tower of Songs
Issue 4
by Prof. Dr. Dan K.J. Vercammen
鳥鳴澗
人閒桂花落
液靜春山空
月出驚山鳥
時鳴春澗中
Ming niao jian
Ren xian gui hua luo
Ye jing chun shan kong
Yue chu jing shan niao
Shi ming chun jian zhong
The Gully of the Crying Birds
A person in a leisurely mood, osmanthus flowers falling,
On a silent night, the spring mountains deserted;
The moon rising, the mountain birds startled
Crying from time to time in the spring gully.
Today we’re in the company of poet Wang Wei 王維 (701–761), who was described by Su Dongpo (1037–1101), himself a poet and art critic, as being able to write a poem that looked like a painting and paint poetry.
Wang succeeded in the imperial exams at the age of twenty and had a long and successful official career, mainly living near and in Chang’an, the Tang capital. His career made him a Confucianist, but his heart lay with Buddhism. He adopted the Buddhist name Mojie 摩詰 after the bodhisattva Vimalakirti.
Painting and poetry were closely related in classical China, and Wang Wei was a master of both arts. We may assume that he also excelled in calligraphy, as this was required for the imperial exams. With Wang Wei, we encounter a scholar-official with multiple artistic skills and a deep inclination toward Buddhism.
From his surviving landscape paintings we know that he loved nature, and his poems express this vividly. No doubt he spent a great deal of time in the mountains and near waterfalls. I’ve chosen to present and translate two of his poems.
At first sight, we might categorize Wang Wei as simply a poet of nature. But that won’t do.
Let us travel back to Tang-period China.
This is not present-day China. There are far fewer people, especially in nature. No tourist guides with umbrellas or flags leading noisy groups through the mountains. The mountains are difficult to access, with few pathways and even fewer human-made stairs.
There are, however, many temples in the mountains. Secluded, difficult to find, and sometimes built in places that are hard to reach. Buddhists and Taoists share these mountain regions, probably meeting each other from time to time, discussing their teachings and experiences.
The older Taoist tradition influences the younger Chinese Buddhist traditions. Chan Buddhists, in particular, are deeply interested in Taoist writings such as the Zhuangzi and Taoist cultivation practices.
Confucian officials, being avid readers, absorb ideas from both traditions and seek out masters to deepen their understanding. Something is beginning to take shape, and by the late Tang this development will become clearer: sanjiao heyi 三教合一 — the “Three Teachings Becoming One.”
The roots of this movement, which aimed at the peaceful coexistence and integration of China’s three great philosophical-religious traditions, are already visible during Wang Wei’s lifetime.
Now let us zoom in on Wang Wei himself.
We imagine him visiting mountain regions, climbing to temples, spending nights there, meeting monks, and temporarily sharing their lives. He is happy there. It is quiet.
Nature is overwhelming:
wild forests,
bamboo groves,
a multitude of birds,
powerful mountain rivers forcing their way through gullies
and descending loudly as cascades.
The monks teach him to become one with nature, to experience endlessness — what Taoists call Dao — and perhaps even to glimpse enlightenment.
Wang begins to feel different. He experiences moments of being outside his shell, outside the ordinary limits of self. He is no longer separate from nature.
He is nature.
He is Dao.
Now we zoom out again and return to the poems themselves, but we carry these experiences with us.
The title of the first poem translates as the name of the gully Wang describes.
The Chinese characters themselves “paint” the birds and the gully.
Niao 鳥 is the character for bird(s). One can see the head and eye of the bird at the top, the body and wing below, and the legs and tail at the bottom.
It becomes easier to understand how Chinese poetry could resemble painting when one realizes that the characters themselves already contain imagery.
The character ming 鳴, “crying” or “calling,” combines the bird character with the character for mouth. The sound of birds becomes visible.
The character jian 澗, “gully,” combines water with the image of a gate and something appearing between the gate’s two sides — traditionally interpreted as sunlight or flowing space.
A Tang Chinese reader would not only read these characters, but also see and hear them.
In four short lines, Wang Wei paints a spring mountain night.
We imagine ourselves walking leisurely through the mountains beneath a full moon. Osmanthus flowers fall softly. The moon rises suddenly, startling birds that cry out through the spring gully.
A fine picture of a person experiencing nature. Is it?
But there is another layer.
The poem can also be understood as an inner experience during jingzuo 靜坐 — quiet sitting meditation.
Such practice formed an important part of both Buddhist and Taoist cultivation and supported the path toward enlightenment.
The person in the poem — perhaps Wang Wei himself — enters a state of “sitting and forgetting,” or zuowang 坐忘, as Zhuangzi describes it.
Thoughts, emotions, and personal concerns gradually disappear.
The falling osmanthus flowers carry multiple meanings:
the osmanthus is associated with the moon;
it traditionally belongs to autumn, although the poem takes place in spring;
and it can symbolize success in the imperial examinations.
Perhaps Wang Wei, withdrawing from official life, hopes for a new spring after the passing of autumn and winter.
In this state there is silence, darkness, emptiness.
No thoughts.No emotional agitation.Only quietude.
Then suddenly a bright silvery light appears — moonlike, startling him.
An emotional response briefly returns.
Enlightenment has not yet fully stabilized.
Of course, the poem can still be appreciated entirely as a nature poem. Yet discovering this deeper layer makes it even richer.
A related poem by Wang Wei is the following:
辛夷塢
木末芙蓉花
山中發紅萼
澗戶寂無人
紛紛開且落
Xin yi wu
Mu mo fu rong hua
Shan zhong fa hong e
Jian hu ji wu ren
Fen fen kai qie luo
The Sunken Lily Magnolia Flowerbed
Hibiscus flower buds at the end of the branches
In the mountains, releasing red sepals
A household near the gully: all quiet, no-one there
One after the other open up and then drop.
Here again Wang Wei refers to springtime, symbolized by the magnolia in the title. The magnolia often represents spring and purity in Tang poetry.
However, the hibiscus can also be associated with autumn, particularly the Mid-Autumn festivities.
Once more we encounter the spring–autumn opposition already present in the previous poem.
Again we find:
the absence of people,
falling flowers,
quietness,
and emptiness.
The poem functions both as a nature poem and as a contemplation on life and death.
Flowers open and fall.Thoughts arise and disappear.
The “household near the gully” becomes a metaphor for the human mind itself — ordinarily inhabited by restless activity, but through practice capable of becoming still and empty.
Within that quiet mind, thoughts arise one after another like flowers opening and then falling away.
Finally, let us revisit the first line.
The line visually represents a tree and the entire process of blossoming.
The tree 木 grows branches and at their ends 末 flowers gradually develop from simple to complex.
Wang Wei subtly transforms visual imagery into philosophical reflection.
The character transformations themselves suggest processes of becoming and transformation.
The tree becomes a metaphor for the transformation of human life and appearance.
Wang Wei cleverly disguises Buddhist practice within descriptions of nature.
As a Chan Buddhist, he is deeply influenced by Taoist love of nature and Taoist insights.
Nature and humanity mirror one another in both Chan and Taoist thought.
And that is precisely what makes Wang Wei’s poetry so well suited to Taoist-inclined readers.
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