Combined with technical excellence it
achieves
greatness.
Like-Water-or-Clouds-The-Tang-Dynasty
0?
Wang Wei was born in 699AD in Shensi province. His father was a local official, his mother a member of a distinguished literary family. He and his brother were introduced to society in the Capital when he was about sixteen years old. An early poem e? Words for the Mica Screeni? already shows the acute sensibility and light, quiet touch of the poet and painter. The transparent screen reveals the landscape as though it was a painting made by Nature. Behind the artifice is the reality that obviates the need for artifice. Nature is a better painter than humanity. Through art Nature can be shown and enhanced, but Nature is always beyond art as the greater existence that can only be reached by simplicity, sensitivity and attentiveness. This tension remains throughout Wangi? s work, the desire for expression and realisation
85
? ? ? counterbalanced by the knowledge that Nature should be sufficient. That feeling for the profundity of reality, that renders art superfluous and unnecessary, was a factor in Wangi? s attraction to Buddhism and led to a perpetual dissatisfaction with his artistic achievement that perhaps made him a greater poet and painter.
His lines e? Written on the Wang River Scrolli? acknowledge the e? errori? of any perception of him as purely an artistic surface, and point to the elusiveness of the true self that is beyond art. He was drawn to the pleasures of art and creation, but also understood the Taoist ideal of non- action and a more profound passivity. Equally he is full of feelings, not expressed or inexpressible, below the surface of the poems, while trying to follow the Buddhist path to extinction of desire and self.
This early period also produced the poem on e? Peach Blossom Springi? , a retelling of Ti? ao Chi? ieni? s famous story. Here is the Taoist theme, of a truer life that can be achieved outside or
86
? ? ? beyond the contemporary world, a life that is found and too easily lost again, that is deep in the Yin reality symbolised by peach blossom and clouded woods, by the green stream and bright moon. There, human beings are free of intrusiveness, forget time, achieve simplicity, and become e? Immortalsi? . There, they cultivate their gardens outside the mainstream of events. As against the Confucian ideals of rational and benevolent engagement with the world this is escapism, and the land of Peach Blossom Spring is a e? refugei? from the unacceptable and inhuman world. But from a Taoist or Buddhist perspective it is a transcendence of the inhuman, a deeper existence. Since the goal human beings chase after is merely a transient illusion, then what is it an escape from, what is it an escape to?
In Wangi? s life and that of the other great poets, there is the tension between engagement and disengagement, between living in the suffering and feeling world, and living in the Vortex or the Void, between being a part and
87
? entering the mountains without looking back. From the perspective of the world, the Way is an escape, a turning away from what drives human affairs. From the perspective of the spirit however it is a realisation, an awakening, as in Chi? an (Zen) Buddhism, or a more gradual realisation of and eventual existence in harmony with the Tao, or a progression towards that extinction of the Self that is the Buddhist Nirvana.
When he was twenty-three in 722AD Wang Wei passed the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? presented scholari? examination, which was a passport to official service. Introduced by the Sui Dynasty and elaborated by the Ti? ang the Civil Service examinations demanded a comprehensive knowledge of the Confucian Classics and also tested literary ability, including poetic composition. The Han Dynasty had encouraged officials who possessed moral integrity, intellectual ability, and respect for good manners, combined with the courage to speak
88
? out where the good of the State was at stake. It enabled the creation of a talented administrative elite controlled by the Imperial Court and therefore owing it allegiance, and in principle independent of other power-groups and factions. The Sui and Ti? ang strengthened and formalised this approach through the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? degree of advanced learningi? that aimed to find and promote men of intellect, integrity and culture.
Officials were therefore practising literary men, who had sufficient leisure to maintain sponsorship and practise of the arts, and whose concentration was on the cultured life (? 03). In the mid eighth century the Ti? ang State Academy Directorate at Chi? ang-an had an enrolment of over two thousand students with a smaller version of the Directorate at Lo-yang. Though it recruited mainly from those with aristocratic backgrounds other candidates recognised as having great potential were also sponsored. The graduates of the system occupied about a seventh of the higher official executive posts
89
? including many of the key ones and formed a Court F? ? 90. Only twenty or thirty . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? students graduated successfully each year from about a thousand candidates, since the examinations demanded not only skill in two forms of composition and extensive ability to quote from the Confucian Classics, but also expert analysis of contemporary administrative and economic problems. Li Po never entered for the examination and Tu Fu did so but failed.
Wang was a man of multifarious talents, and he was immediately appointed to the Court, becoming the Assistant Secretary for Music. However he soon fell foul of the strict adherence to rules which officialdom required, and, through some minor error, was packed off to a lowly post in the provinces. e? Minor officials easily court troublei? he says in a poem, e? so here am I sent out to Chichoui? . He stayed in Shantung for a few years before resigning and returning to Chi? ang- an. He married, and bought his beloved estate in the Chungnan foothills, south of the capital at
90
? Lanti? ien, where he spent time whenever he could throughout his life. e? Leaving Wang Riveri? reveals his attachment to the solitude and spirituality that his retreat there allowed him, as though iti? s reality was an echo of the Peach Blossom Paradise.
His wife died young when he was only thirty, and, though childless, he never remarried. One sad poem seems to refer to this difficult time. He entered public service again at the age of thirty-five. He then alternated his time between his official duties, including a mission to the north west frontier for three years in 737AD when he was thirty-eight (the poem e? Missioni? refers to this), and his life at his Wang River estate where he could paint and write, be musician and scholar. His poetry and painting is filled with the natural landscape and a deeply felt Taoist sympathy.
His poem e? A Replyi? for instance communicates the elusiveness of the mind that is lost in contemplation of natural beauty.
91
? ? ? ? e? Chungnani? expresses his need for solitude and meditation relieved now and then by human companionship. Poems like these reveal the instinctive Taoist, the artist with great aesthetic sensibility whose response to Nature is empathetic. His aspiration is to be part of the natural world, to release the will, create spontaneously, think tranquilly, and merge with the perceived beauty. He became an archetype of the scholar-painter, and his genius allowed him to be appropriated later as the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting, though none of his paintings survive. The Wang River Scroll was particularly famous and showed twenty scenes around his estate with accompanying verses, the scroll form allowing the unrolling of an extended landscape and creating a new mode of depiction. Later landscape painting concentrates on natural harmony often to the exclusion of humankind, the human being represented by tiny figures in the landscape, lost amongst Yin valleys, clouds
92
? ? and rivers, Yang mountains, rocks and pines. Parts of the paint surface are often blank, using the emptiness of the underlying texture to generate a sense of the Tao. e? What we realise is Somethingi? says the Tao Te Ching, e? but it is by using Nothing that we allow it to exist. i? Hsieh Ho, at the end of the fifth century AD stated the six main techniques of painting. The first and most important being . ? ? ? ? ? Q3? 8? 03? ? 9:3? , the achievement of an atmosphere and tone that is fully alive.
The painter should express a depth and clarity of spirit that is in sympathy with the natural world. The painting is created with spontaneity, harmony and vitality. It captures the essence of things. Kuo Hsi in the eleventh century said that painting depended on concentration, seriousness, lightness of spirit, and energy. This is the Taoist inner harmony and spontaneity, combined with a deep intuition of Nature, supported by technique, but ultimately capable of communicating despite blemishes of
93
? technique. Lack of harmony leaves art lifeless despite technical excellence.
e? ? ? ? ? means the mind guiding the brush in complete controli? , said the tenth century painter Ching Hao, e? When you picture the form but miss the spirit that is merely a likeness. The real essence is to capture the form ,3/ the spirit. When the spirit is missing the form is dead. To do it without apparent effort and catch the natural form is the work of a master. i? e? Pictures are made in the mindi? wrote Kuo Jo-hs ? a great critic of the Sung Dynasty, e? they are expressed and revealed through the tip of the brush. The sense of the form of things is created mysteriously to rouse the feelings and awaken the greatness of mensi? spirits. i? Shen Tsung- chi? ien in the eighteenth century talks about the need for sureness of touch and firmness of line. e? ? ? ? ? (breath, spirit, atmosphere or here force) is all-important in applying the brush. Force gives strength to the stroke and any line drawn is alive with energy. We say the line has spirit. i? The
94
? artist by embracing Taoist spontaneity allied to technical capability can meditate to escape the self-conscious desire to create, and in doing so can create in a deeper mode than that achievable by mere knowledge and effort. It is a mode of inspiration, since . ? ? ? ? is precisely spirit, vital spirit, or breath.
Combined with technical excellence it achieves greatness.
We no longer have any original paintings by Wang, but he is said to have painted with sensitive, thin lines with delicate, additional line- shading emphasising fine detail. Forms and colours blurred in the distance in fluid atmosphere. The use of rhythmic lines with emphasis on contour and texture, rather than the use of ink shading as in the West, is a feature of much of later Chinese painting. A ninth century writer Chang Yen-y ? an mentions Wang for the depth of his paintings. Ching Hao talks about his harmonious brushstrokes, elevated tone, and deep knowledge of forms. Mi Fei, the great eleventh century painter, mentions seeing a self-
95
? portrait by Wang in a yellow robe, with palms together, that he states as genuine. He also comments that any paintings with delicate lines are too freely ascribed to Wang, for example snow scenes, and he protests at this indiscriminate mis-attribution of inferior paintings in order to enhance their value.
Wang is claimed as the author of two early treatises on painting technique and traditionally he is held to be the inventor of monochrome ink landscape painting. The Chi? an Buddhist School was to develop monochrome in a penetrating and profound way to express the meditative atmosphere from which Buddhist enlightenment was achieved. Using multi-toned Chinese black ink on paper or silk it combined calligraphy, imitating e? grass writingi? , with the vital immediacy of the spontaneous brush stroke. The hand flows over the surface in a continuous movement combining grace, strength, rapidity, fluidity and lightness of touch.
96
? Wang seems to have used a more restrained, but harmonious technique, that led to him being viewed as the founder of the later 'Southern School'. He no doubt helped that concentration on pure landscape, the e? mountains and watersi? motif that became the favourite theme of Chinese art alongside e? flowers and birdsi? , e? bamboo in inki? and e? quadrupeds and plantsi? . All the elements of a painting were designed to evoke the flow of natural energies, the dragon veins of rocks, the flickering life of birds, the graceful interlacing of flowers and leaves in the breeze, the movement of water, the outlines of snow-covered mountains, the branches of pines. Light and season invoke mood, plants and animals point beyond physical representation to an inner life and growth. The perspective is calm, but the content is ceaselessly moving. The landscape painting does not rest in a single focal point or in a definite moment, but draws the eye in to its windings and spaces, its valleys and bays, its heights and depths, allowing the mind
97
? to wander over the fixed surface without exhausting the scene. The Tao is present in white cloud space, in green tree and river depths, in curving shorelines and falling water, in the shapes of mountains, the bones of the earth, cliffs and gorges, fissures and caverns, erosion and layering, cascades and torrents.
In the Tale of Genji there is an evocative scene. e? The emperor loved to paint which he did beautifully and to look at paintings. i? he encourages his ladies to paint and collect. Genji and Murasaki sort out a set of paintings that includes e? moving and interesting pictures of those tragic Chinese ladies Yang Kuei-fei and Wang Chao-ch ? n. i? There is a competition between the ladies where illustrations of stories are compared and the stories discussed. The chapter e? A picture contesti? culminates with the Emperor viewing selected paintings with Genji acting as umpire. The power, fluidity and gracefulness of the old masters are contrasted with the ingenuity and technical skill of the
98
? moderns. Genjii? s scroll evoking his life at Suma beach wins with its delicacy and sureness of touch. The ability of art to recreate emotion in the audience is key. e? They had pitied him and had thought they had suffered with him, but now they felt how it had actually been. They saw the bleak unnamed shores and bays. i? e? He had depicted the mood of those years. i?
Wangi? s mother, who died when he was about fifty-one years old, in 750AD, had been a Buddhist, as were his brothers. At her death he resigned from office and performed a ritual three years of mourning to express his love for her, and acknowledge their Buddhist beliefs. Taoism was a component of Wangi? s creativity, but his spiritual feelings often seem to be pushing at the boundaries of Taoism. His poems on visiting temples and on meditation and reclusiveness, among the mountains and the white clouds, point to his Buddhist yearnings to e? pass the Gatei? and achieve a deeper state of being. The admixture of Buddhism with Taoism was a potent one
99
? within the personal temperaments of many poets and painters, and Wang Wei exemplifies the co- existence and contrast of two profound ways of thought. e? I have come herei? writes Genji with a degree of dissembling as he visits the Buddhist Temple, e? to find out whether I am capable of leaving this world. Tranquility is elusive and isolation grows. There are things I have still to learn. i?
100
? ? ://? ? 82
Buddhai? s story is of the young prince Gautama who horrified at the nature of life in the world searches for, and finds, enlightenment and the route to a higher and nobler existence. His sermon in the Deer Park, at Benares in northern India, laid out the core teaching. Buddhism was to be a Middle Path between ascetic self-torture and worldly indulgence. Enlightenment would lead to knowledge, knowledge to calm, calm and meditation to a higher enlightenment, and ultimately to Nirvana, extinction of the self and release from the Hindu Wheel of Rebirth. Buddhism would concentrate on addressing life in this world, and Buddha evaded as inappropriate and inessential the questions of the existence of the soul, or life after death, or the existence of eternal mind. There is an implied atheism and in the ,3,99, or e? no-souli? doctrine an implied rejection of the concept of the
101
? ? permanent self, but the focus is on the reality of humankindi? s life in the world.
The young prince found it to be possessed by impermanence (,3? . . ,) and illusion (,3,99,), pain and grief (/:? ? ? ,), illness and death. From this world there was a need to escape through transcendence, through detachment, through a way of life that could bring peace. The Deer Park sermon articulated the Four Truths and set turning the Wheel of the Law (/? ,72,). Firstly the noble Truth of pain itself: that birth, life, death, sickness, sorrow and despair are pain, everything we grasp is pain. Secondly the noble Truth of the cause of pain: that pain is born out of our craving, our grasping, our desires, the craving for passion, existence, and non-existence that leads to imprisonment in the cycle of rebirths. Thirdly the noble Truth of the cessation of pain: that pain ceases through the abandonment of craving, the extinction of desires, through non-attachment and release from grasping. Fourthly the noble Truth of the
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? Way that leads to cessation: through the path of right behaviour, intention and awareness. These four truths are the essential teaching.
The follower is bound to avoid violence, crime and indulgence. e? Having set aside violence against any creature the follower is ashamed to cause hurt, imbued with kindness, compassionate and benevolent towards all living things. Having set aside what is not given the follower expects only what is given, the Self being pure. Having put away all deceit, the follower lives for truth and reason. i? Without caste or discrimination, Buddhism is a way of equality for anyone who wishes to achieve enlightenment. The ultimate end of the Way is Nirvana, the blowing out of the flame of self, the waning away of all suffering. As in Patanjali Yoga its aim is e? the deliberate cessation of the random activity of the mindi? . Nirvana is the state that like the Tao cannot be described. It is neither existence nor non-existence in any normal meaning. It is a silence, an illumination,
103
? beyond the Wheel of Rebirths. It is a personal route to bliss. e? Decay is a process inherent in all compound things. i? said the dying Gautama to his disciple Ananda, e? Seek out your own salvation with diligence. i?
One of the early Buddhist psalms says e? I have put aside all desire, for this or for another life, being one who has reached out to truth, whoi? s hearti? s at peace, whoi? s self is tamed and pure, seeing the worldi? s unending flow. i? This is a perception of the Vortex. The mind has e? gone beyondi? . Nirvana is like the quenching of a blazing fire, in which the flames of suffering, being, existence, rebirth, and craving are extinguished.
The stream of Buddhism, Theravada (The Way of the elders), which attempted to stay close to the pure teachings flourished in Burma, Thailand and Shri Lanka. Its hymn is e? Gata, gata, paragata, parasangata, bodhi, swahai? , e? Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, Oh, what an awakening, all hail. i?
104
? Theravada is the Way of the single one, of renunciation and ultimate extinction of the self in the Void. In its pure form it creates and satisfies a longing for stillness and release, and Nirvana is interpreted as a state of mind empty of all content, ideas, sensations and feelings. It can be achieved through intense concentration causing all craving and attachment to cease. Mindful of Buddhai? s own teaching there is an inherent paradox in trying to use striving to end striving, and in eliminating the mental world that is the flux and vortex of the only reality. Theravada can be seen as a world-denying doctrine.
The Buddhism that dominated in China and Japan was the Mayahana (Greater Vehicle) school which stressed the incompleteness of that salvation for the self that excluded others, and whose key concept is the Bodhisattva, that is the Buddha who from the verge of Nirvana turns back to save humankind. Mahayana in China, particularly in the form of the Pure Land School
105
? with its Bodhisattva, Amitabha (Amida in Japan), taught a casteless doctrine of non- violence, compassion and loving concern. Alongside it the Chi? an (Zen) or Meditation school developed out of the convergence of Taoism and Buddhism and remained closer to the Theravada doctrine relying on personal enlightenment and illuminating insight. These three strands of Theravada world-denial, Mahayana compassion, and Chi? an illumination of the Vortex as the Void, all contributed to the complexity of Chinese practice.
The ceaseless flow of the Vortex, that is the Tao, is for Chi? an Buddhism the Void whose perception and naming by the mind generates the illusion (2,? ,) of a reality, a sea, of discrete entities and events (8,28,7,)? Reality is beyond concept, and beyond words, and available truly only by a direct pointing, or a moment of illumination. The world in Taoism and Buddhism is essentially ungraspable, elusive, and shadowy. The attempt to grasp, to realise
106
? self, is self-defeating. Both ways of thought see morality in terms of equality, compassion, non- violence, and integrity, arising from the innate understanding of the enlightened human being. Though Buddhism codifies its practices in a way that Taoism rejects as unnatural, both discard the inessential that includes all forms of grasping and excessive attachment. They thereby discard what a moral code would regard as crime, immorality, sin, and evil action, as not conducive to achieving the goal.
The Taoisti? s aim is to relinquish analysis and classification in achieving harmony, spontaneity, tranquility, simplicity, and elimination of inessential action and thereby realise the Tao. The Buddhisti? s goal of meditation is to realise a similar non-analytic state that defeats 2,? ,? ? the illusion of the myriad creatures, and rests in the Void. It is achieved by the relinquishment of craving, thereby eliminating the self from the cycles of existence.
107
? There is a world-rejection in Theravada Buddhism that is alien to Taoism. Buddhism goes beyond the natural world. Taoism seeks to be in harmony with it. Buddhism sees suffering and the Wheel of Rebirth. Taoism sees a natural path without suffering within the world, and never anticipates rebirth. Both ways of thought have however played many variations on the theme generating a popular Taoism intoxicated with the search for immortality, often through sexual practices or sympathetic magic, and a popular Buddhism of worship of the Bodhisattvas. But the pure forms of Buddhism and Taoism that search for individual enlightenment overlap in their concept of the unnameability of reality, an approach to it through the rejection of analysis and naming, and a realised state of mind, or attitude, that results, before death, in inner harmony.
Wang Wei often seems to be yearning for a peace and stillness offered by Buddhism that is beyond the harmony with Nature. If the Peach
108
? Blossom Spring is his expression of the hearti? s desire for the Taoist paradisial state of spontaneity and simplicity, the White Clouds that appear as a motif in many of his poems are the Buddhist Gateway to the extinction of the hearti? s pain. The deaths of his wife and beloved mother lead to long periods of mourning and retreat from the world. Wang may have known of that Chi? an doctrine that identifies the Wheel of Rebirth with the moment to moment existence of the body and mind, so that rebirth continues as long as there is the identity of a Self that renews in every instant. Nirvana is then the cessation of the circling of the mind, the turning about of the spirit, the moving waves of analytical thought, and the disturbances of the body. Nirvana has then the same goal as Yoga.
Wang Weii? s yearning was for the realisation of this state, the cessation from all forms of pain, through the abandonment of craving. He would try to e?
Wang Wei was born in 699AD in Shensi province. His father was a local official, his mother a member of a distinguished literary family. He and his brother were introduced to society in the Capital when he was about sixteen years old. An early poem e? Words for the Mica Screeni? already shows the acute sensibility and light, quiet touch of the poet and painter. The transparent screen reveals the landscape as though it was a painting made by Nature. Behind the artifice is the reality that obviates the need for artifice. Nature is a better painter than humanity. Through art Nature can be shown and enhanced, but Nature is always beyond art as the greater existence that can only be reached by simplicity, sensitivity and attentiveness. This tension remains throughout Wangi? s work, the desire for expression and realisation
85
? ? ? counterbalanced by the knowledge that Nature should be sufficient. That feeling for the profundity of reality, that renders art superfluous and unnecessary, was a factor in Wangi? s attraction to Buddhism and led to a perpetual dissatisfaction with his artistic achievement that perhaps made him a greater poet and painter.
His lines e? Written on the Wang River Scrolli? acknowledge the e? errori? of any perception of him as purely an artistic surface, and point to the elusiveness of the true self that is beyond art. He was drawn to the pleasures of art and creation, but also understood the Taoist ideal of non- action and a more profound passivity. Equally he is full of feelings, not expressed or inexpressible, below the surface of the poems, while trying to follow the Buddhist path to extinction of desire and self.
This early period also produced the poem on e? Peach Blossom Springi? , a retelling of Ti? ao Chi? ieni? s famous story. Here is the Taoist theme, of a truer life that can be achieved outside or
86
? ? ? beyond the contemporary world, a life that is found and too easily lost again, that is deep in the Yin reality symbolised by peach blossom and clouded woods, by the green stream and bright moon. There, human beings are free of intrusiveness, forget time, achieve simplicity, and become e? Immortalsi? . There, they cultivate their gardens outside the mainstream of events. As against the Confucian ideals of rational and benevolent engagement with the world this is escapism, and the land of Peach Blossom Spring is a e? refugei? from the unacceptable and inhuman world. But from a Taoist or Buddhist perspective it is a transcendence of the inhuman, a deeper existence. Since the goal human beings chase after is merely a transient illusion, then what is it an escape from, what is it an escape to?
In Wangi? s life and that of the other great poets, there is the tension between engagement and disengagement, between living in the suffering and feeling world, and living in the Vortex or the Void, between being a part and
87
? entering the mountains without looking back. From the perspective of the world, the Way is an escape, a turning away from what drives human affairs. From the perspective of the spirit however it is a realisation, an awakening, as in Chi? an (Zen) Buddhism, or a more gradual realisation of and eventual existence in harmony with the Tao, or a progression towards that extinction of the Self that is the Buddhist Nirvana.
When he was twenty-three in 722AD Wang Wei passed the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? presented scholari? examination, which was a passport to official service. Introduced by the Sui Dynasty and elaborated by the Ti? ang the Civil Service examinations demanded a comprehensive knowledge of the Confucian Classics and also tested literary ability, including poetic composition. The Han Dynasty had encouraged officials who possessed moral integrity, intellectual ability, and respect for good manners, combined with the courage to speak
88
? out where the good of the State was at stake. It enabled the creation of a talented administrative elite controlled by the Imperial Court and therefore owing it allegiance, and in principle independent of other power-groups and factions. The Sui and Ti? ang strengthened and formalised this approach through the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? degree of advanced learningi? that aimed to find and promote men of intellect, integrity and culture.
Officials were therefore practising literary men, who had sufficient leisure to maintain sponsorship and practise of the arts, and whose concentration was on the cultured life (? 03). In the mid eighth century the Ti? ang State Academy Directorate at Chi? ang-an had an enrolment of over two thousand students with a smaller version of the Directorate at Lo-yang. Though it recruited mainly from those with aristocratic backgrounds other candidates recognised as having great potential were also sponsored. The graduates of the system occupied about a seventh of the higher official executive posts
89
? including many of the key ones and formed a Court F? ? 90. Only twenty or thirty . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? students graduated successfully each year from about a thousand candidates, since the examinations demanded not only skill in two forms of composition and extensive ability to quote from the Confucian Classics, but also expert analysis of contemporary administrative and economic problems. Li Po never entered for the examination and Tu Fu did so but failed.
Wang was a man of multifarious talents, and he was immediately appointed to the Court, becoming the Assistant Secretary for Music. However he soon fell foul of the strict adherence to rules which officialdom required, and, through some minor error, was packed off to a lowly post in the provinces. e? Minor officials easily court troublei? he says in a poem, e? so here am I sent out to Chichoui? . He stayed in Shantung for a few years before resigning and returning to Chi? ang- an. He married, and bought his beloved estate in the Chungnan foothills, south of the capital at
90
? Lanti? ien, where he spent time whenever he could throughout his life. e? Leaving Wang Riveri? reveals his attachment to the solitude and spirituality that his retreat there allowed him, as though iti? s reality was an echo of the Peach Blossom Paradise.
His wife died young when he was only thirty, and, though childless, he never remarried. One sad poem seems to refer to this difficult time. He entered public service again at the age of thirty-five. He then alternated his time between his official duties, including a mission to the north west frontier for three years in 737AD when he was thirty-eight (the poem e? Missioni? refers to this), and his life at his Wang River estate where he could paint and write, be musician and scholar. His poetry and painting is filled with the natural landscape and a deeply felt Taoist sympathy.
His poem e? A Replyi? for instance communicates the elusiveness of the mind that is lost in contemplation of natural beauty.
91
? ? ? ? e? Chungnani? expresses his need for solitude and meditation relieved now and then by human companionship. Poems like these reveal the instinctive Taoist, the artist with great aesthetic sensibility whose response to Nature is empathetic. His aspiration is to be part of the natural world, to release the will, create spontaneously, think tranquilly, and merge with the perceived beauty. He became an archetype of the scholar-painter, and his genius allowed him to be appropriated later as the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting, though none of his paintings survive. The Wang River Scroll was particularly famous and showed twenty scenes around his estate with accompanying verses, the scroll form allowing the unrolling of an extended landscape and creating a new mode of depiction. Later landscape painting concentrates on natural harmony often to the exclusion of humankind, the human being represented by tiny figures in the landscape, lost amongst Yin valleys, clouds
92
? ? and rivers, Yang mountains, rocks and pines. Parts of the paint surface are often blank, using the emptiness of the underlying texture to generate a sense of the Tao. e? What we realise is Somethingi? says the Tao Te Ching, e? but it is by using Nothing that we allow it to exist. i? Hsieh Ho, at the end of the fifth century AD stated the six main techniques of painting. The first and most important being . ? ? ? ? ? Q3? 8? 03? ? 9:3? , the achievement of an atmosphere and tone that is fully alive.
The painter should express a depth and clarity of spirit that is in sympathy with the natural world. The painting is created with spontaneity, harmony and vitality. It captures the essence of things. Kuo Hsi in the eleventh century said that painting depended on concentration, seriousness, lightness of spirit, and energy. This is the Taoist inner harmony and spontaneity, combined with a deep intuition of Nature, supported by technique, but ultimately capable of communicating despite blemishes of
93
? technique. Lack of harmony leaves art lifeless despite technical excellence.
e? ? ? ? ? means the mind guiding the brush in complete controli? , said the tenth century painter Ching Hao, e? When you picture the form but miss the spirit that is merely a likeness. The real essence is to capture the form ,3/ the spirit. When the spirit is missing the form is dead. To do it without apparent effort and catch the natural form is the work of a master. i? e? Pictures are made in the mindi? wrote Kuo Jo-hs ? a great critic of the Sung Dynasty, e? they are expressed and revealed through the tip of the brush. The sense of the form of things is created mysteriously to rouse the feelings and awaken the greatness of mensi? spirits. i? Shen Tsung- chi? ien in the eighteenth century talks about the need for sureness of touch and firmness of line. e? ? ? ? ? (breath, spirit, atmosphere or here force) is all-important in applying the brush. Force gives strength to the stroke and any line drawn is alive with energy. We say the line has spirit. i? The
94
? artist by embracing Taoist spontaneity allied to technical capability can meditate to escape the self-conscious desire to create, and in doing so can create in a deeper mode than that achievable by mere knowledge and effort. It is a mode of inspiration, since . ? ? ? ? is precisely spirit, vital spirit, or breath.
Combined with technical excellence it achieves greatness.
We no longer have any original paintings by Wang, but he is said to have painted with sensitive, thin lines with delicate, additional line- shading emphasising fine detail. Forms and colours blurred in the distance in fluid atmosphere. The use of rhythmic lines with emphasis on contour and texture, rather than the use of ink shading as in the West, is a feature of much of later Chinese painting. A ninth century writer Chang Yen-y ? an mentions Wang for the depth of his paintings. Ching Hao talks about his harmonious brushstrokes, elevated tone, and deep knowledge of forms. Mi Fei, the great eleventh century painter, mentions seeing a self-
95
? portrait by Wang in a yellow robe, with palms together, that he states as genuine. He also comments that any paintings with delicate lines are too freely ascribed to Wang, for example snow scenes, and he protests at this indiscriminate mis-attribution of inferior paintings in order to enhance their value.
Wang is claimed as the author of two early treatises on painting technique and traditionally he is held to be the inventor of monochrome ink landscape painting. The Chi? an Buddhist School was to develop monochrome in a penetrating and profound way to express the meditative atmosphere from which Buddhist enlightenment was achieved. Using multi-toned Chinese black ink on paper or silk it combined calligraphy, imitating e? grass writingi? , with the vital immediacy of the spontaneous brush stroke. The hand flows over the surface in a continuous movement combining grace, strength, rapidity, fluidity and lightness of touch.
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? Wang seems to have used a more restrained, but harmonious technique, that led to him being viewed as the founder of the later 'Southern School'. He no doubt helped that concentration on pure landscape, the e? mountains and watersi? motif that became the favourite theme of Chinese art alongside e? flowers and birdsi? , e? bamboo in inki? and e? quadrupeds and plantsi? . All the elements of a painting were designed to evoke the flow of natural energies, the dragon veins of rocks, the flickering life of birds, the graceful interlacing of flowers and leaves in the breeze, the movement of water, the outlines of snow-covered mountains, the branches of pines. Light and season invoke mood, plants and animals point beyond physical representation to an inner life and growth. The perspective is calm, but the content is ceaselessly moving. The landscape painting does not rest in a single focal point or in a definite moment, but draws the eye in to its windings and spaces, its valleys and bays, its heights and depths, allowing the mind
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? to wander over the fixed surface without exhausting the scene. The Tao is present in white cloud space, in green tree and river depths, in curving shorelines and falling water, in the shapes of mountains, the bones of the earth, cliffs and gorges, fissures and caverns, erosion and layering, cascades and torrents.
In the Tale of Genji there is an evocative scene. e? The emperor loved to paint which he did beautifully and to look at paintings. i? he encourages his ladies to paint and collect. Genji and Murasaki sort out a set of paintings that includes e? moving and interesting pictures of those tragic Chinese ladies Yang Kuei-fei and Wang Chao-ch ? n. i? There is a competition between the ladies where illustrations of stories are compared and the stories discussed. The chapter e? A picture contesti? culminates with the Emperor viewing selected paintings with Genji acting as umpire. The power, fluidity and gracefulness of the old masters are contrasted with the ingenuity and technical skill of the
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? moderns. Genjii? s scroll evoking his life at Suma beach wins with its delicacy and sureness of touch. The ability of art to recreate emotion in the audience is key. e? They had pitied him and had thought they had suffered with him, but now they felt how it had actually been. They saw the bleak unnamed shores and bays. i? e? He had depicted the mood of those years. i?
Wangi? s mother, who died when he was about fifty-one years old, in 750AD, had been a Buddhist, as were his brothers. At her death he resigned from office and performed a ritual three years of mourning to express his love for her, and acknowledge their Buddhist beliefs. Taoism was a component of Wangi? s creativity, but his spiritual feelings often seem to be pushing at the boundaries of Taoism. His poems on visiting temples and on meditation and reclusiveness, among the mountains and the white clouds, point to his Buddhist yearnings to e? pass the Gatei? and achieve a deeper state of being. The admixture of Buddhism with Taoism was a potent one
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? within the personal temperaments of many poets and painters, and Wang Wei exemplifies the co- existence and contrast of two profound ways of thought. e? I have come herei? writes Genji with a degree of dissembling as he visits the Buddhist Temple, e? to find out whether I am capable of leaving this world. Tranquility is elusive and isolation grows. There are things I have still to learn. i?
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Buddhai? s story is of the young prince Gautama who horrified at the nature of life in the world searches for, and finds, enlightenment and the route to a higher and nobler existence. His sermon in the Deer Park, at Benares in northern India, laid out the core teaching. Buddhism was to be a Middle Path between ascetic self-torture and worldly indulgence. Enlightenment would lead to knowledge, knowledge to calm, calm and meditation to a higher enlightenment, and ultimately to Nirvana, extinction of the self and release from the Hindu Wheel of Rebirth. Buddhism would concentrate on addressing life in this world, and Buddha evaded as inappropriate and inessential the questions of the existence of the soul, or life after death, or the existence of eternal mind. There is an implied atheism and in the ,3,99, or e? no-souli? doctrine an implied rejection of the concept of the
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? ? permanent self, but the focus is on the reality of humankindi? s life in the world.
The young prince found it to be possessed by impermanence (,3? . . ,) and illusion (,3,99,), pain and grief (/:? ? ? ,), illness and death. From this world there was a need to escape through transcendence, through detachment, through a way of life that could bring peace. The Deer Park sermon articulated the Four Truths and set turning the Wheel of the Law (/? ,72,). Firstly the noble Truth of pain itself: that birth, life, death, sickness, sorrow and despair are pain, everything we grasp is pain. Secondly the noble Truth of the cause of pain: that pain is born out of our craving, our grasping, our desires, the craving for passion, existence, and non-existence that leads to imprisonment in the cycle of rebirths. Thirdly the noble Truth of the cessation of pain: that pain ceases through the abandonment of craving, the extinction of desires, through non-attachment and release from grasping. Fourthly the noble Truth of the
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? Way that leads to cessation: through the path of right behaviour, intention and awareness. These four truths are the essential teaching.
The follower is bound to avoid violence, crime and indulgence. e? Having set aside violence against any creature the follower is ashamed to cause hurt, imbued with kindness, compassionate and benevolent towards all living things. Having set aside what is not given the follower expects only what is given, the Self being pure. Having put away all deceit, the follower lives for truth and reason. i? Without caste or discrimination, Buddhism is a way of equality for anyone who wishes to achieve enlightenment. The ultimate end of the Way is Nirvana, the blowing out of the flame of self, the waning away of all suffering. As in Patanjali Yoga its aim is e? the deliberate cessation of the random activity of the mindi? . Nirvana is the state that like the Tao cannot be described. It is neither existence nor non-existence in any normal meaning. It is a silence, an illumination,
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? beyond the Wheel of Rebirths. It is a personal route to bliss. e? Decay is a process inherent in all compound things. i? said the dying Gautama to his disciple Ananda, e? Seek out your own salvation with diligence. i?
One of the early Buddhist psalms says e? I have put aside all desire, for this or for another life, being one who has reached out to truth, whoi? s hearti? s at peace, whoi? s self is tamed and pure, seeing the worldi? s unending flow. i? This is a perception of the Vortex. The mind has e? gone beyondi? . Nirvana is like the quenching of a blazing fire, in which the flames of suffering, being, existence, rebirth, and craving are extinguished.
The stream of Buddhism, Theravada (The Way of the elders), which attempted to stay close to the pure teachings flourished in Burma, Thailand and Shri Lanka. Its hymn is e? Gata, gata, paragata, parasangata, bodhi, swahai? , e? Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, Oh, what an awakening, all hail. i?
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? Theravada is the Way of the single one, of renunciation and ultimate extinction of the self in the Void. In its pure form it creates and satisfies a longing for stillness and release, and Nirvana is interpreted as a state of mind empty of all content, ideas, sensations and feelings. It can be achieved through intense concentration causing all craving and attachment to cease. Mindful of Buddhai? s own teaching there is an inherent paradox in trying to use striving to end striving, and in eliminating the mental world that is the flux and vortex of the only reality. Theravada can be seen as a world-denying doctrine.
The Buddhism that dominated in China and Japan was the Mayahana (Greater Vehicle) school which stressed the incompleteness of that salvation for the self that excluded others, and whose key concept is the Bodhisattva, that is the Buddha who from the verge of Nirvana turns back to save humankind. Mahayana in China, particularly in the form of the Pure Land School
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? with its Bodhisattva, Amitabha (Amida in Japan), taught a casteless doctrine of non- violence, compassion and loving concern. Alongside it the Chi? an (Zen) or Meditation school developed out of the convergence of Taoism and Buddhism and remained closer to the Theravada doctrine relying on personal enlightenment and illuminating insight. These three strands of Theravada world-denial, Mahayana compassion, and Chi? an illumination of the Vortex as the Void, all contributed to the complexity of Chinese practice.
The ceaseless flow of the Vortex, that is the Tao, is for Chi? an Buddhism the Void whose perception and naming by the mind generates the illusion (2,? ,) of a reality, a sea, of discrete entities and events (8,28,7,)? Reality is beyond concept, and beyond words, and available truly only by a direct pointing, or a moment of illumination. The world in Taoism and Buddhism is essentially ungraspable, elusive, and shadowy. The attempt to grasp, to realise
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? self, is self-defeating. Both ways of thought see morality in terms of equality, compassion, non- violence, and integrity, arising from the innate understanding of the enlightened human being. Though Buddhism codifies its practices in a way that Taoism rejects as unnatural, both discard the inessential that includes all forms of grasping and excessive attachment. They thereby discard what a moral code would regard as crime, immorality, sin, and evil action, as not conducive to achieving the goal.
The Taoisti? s aim is to relinquish analysis and classification in achieving harmony, spontaneity, tranquility, simplicity, and elimination of inessential action and thereby realise the Tao. The Buddhisti? s goal of meditation is to realise a similar non-analytic state that defeats 2,? ,? ? the illusion of the myriad creatures, and rests in the Void. It is achieved by the relinquishment of craving, thereby eliminating the self from the cycles of existence.
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? There is a world-rejection in Theravada Buddhism that is alien to Taoism. Buddhism goes beyond the natural world. Taoism seeks to be in harmony with it. Buddhism sees suffering and the Wheel of Rebirth. Taoism sees a natural path without suffering within the world, and never anticipates rebirth. Both ways of thought have however played many variations on the theme generating a popular Taoism intoxicated with the search for immortality, often through sexual practices or sympathetic magic, and a popular Buddhism of worship of the Bodhisattvas. But the pure forms of Buddhism and Taoism that search for individual enlightenment overlap in their concept of the unnameability of reality, an approach to it through the rejection of analysis and naming, and a realised state of mind, or attitude, that results, before death, in inner harmony.
Wang Wei often seems to be yearning for a peace and stillness offered by Buddhism that is beyond the harmony with Nature. If the Peach
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? Blossom Spring is his expression of the hearti? s desire for the Taoist paradisial state of spontaneity and simplicity, the White Clouds that appear as a motif in many of his poems are the Buddhist Gateway to the extinction of the hearti? s pain. The deaths of his wife and beloved mother lead to long periods of mourning and retreat from the world. Wang may have known of that Chi? an doctrine that identifies the Wheel of Rebirth with the moment to moment existence of the body and mind, so that rebirth continues as long as there is the identity of a Self that renews in every instant. Nirvana is then the cessation of the circling of the mind, the turning about of the spirit, the moving waves of analytical thought, and the disturbances of the body. Nirvana has then the same goal as Yoga.
Wang Weii? s yearning was for the realisation of this state, the cessation from all forms of pain, through the abandonment of craving. He would try to e?
