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Published: July 13th 2008
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((After the experience of living in the Hong Kong Temple, I returned to China for 30 days. There I came to two places, very magical and mystical places. Here I want to share, through some poems and photos, my deep love and appreciation that I feel when in China, especially when in such places as these))
Longmen (Dragon Gates)~These Buddhist...caves, more like a portion of a river valley that has been scultped into a window giving view of the Buddhist conceptualized universe, have been chissled, carved, crafted and adored for over 1500 long and slow years, while the river peacefully made its course.
And I wrote this poem there to express my awe and wonder and appreciation and perception.
Ancient River Yi
How long have you carried messages to the sea
As even now you bring us news from the mountains?
Oh that your waters now in oceans were here now
To tell us the stories of LongMen in days of old
How between two hills long carved you peacefully made your course
Carrying too the peace of monks and poets meditating
Perhaps the River bed of Yi carved for centuries as hills beside
Can tell us
more how this place was shaped year after year.
(Here is another poem I wrote. It is mostly to myself. Often my mind seeks to point out so-called errors, things I think I do not like, or what seems unidealistic. To take away what seems 'bad' or 'ugly,' which others may cling to. The Master is said in the Urantia Book to have taught to not "take away" a belief or idea or habit that someone has but rather to give to them, to plant in their mind, a new, good, true and blessed word or idea. In China, because most Chinese hold an interaction with a foreigner to be quite extraordinary (as for many it is not ordinary to meet foreigners) one can experience that magic of giving. One gives a word, an idea, a blessing, a truth, a wind of love, and because the Chinese receiver may view the interaction with great significance, you know that gift will be held in their memory, forever.)
Learn to Give
Do not take away, do not say "it's dirty!" or "it's wrong!"
Give that which can not be got,
Give that too precious to be called
ought but Love, Truth.
A moment flashes as white millenium
All else is lost in the shadow of that moment's glory
And its sublime feeling, far more fine than others to remember,
is never forgotten.
Can you give this?
It's easier to take
It's easier to take the so-called ugly than to give that.
But to take too is ugly
Learn to Give.
Chinese Self
This is who I am!
This is who we are! (Chinese people!!!)
So they say, so thinketh none.
Choosing a dead leaf, dried old and cracked
For a seed of infinite potential.
If this is what they choose
It is better to believe in no self
But few Chinese heed the Buddha's teaching
HANGZHOU
Only in two places in China (Hangzhou and Tai Shan),
did I feel...such profound beauty...
such profound appreciation:
the union of adhoring human beings
and adhored natural beauty,
melded together in one feeling,
that prevades the present landscape.
You can feel the poeticism,
the romanticism,
see the divinely tinted natural beauty
that in Chinese poets and artists,
stirred such feelings,
and you can feel how they left their love in the
land,
to inspire those who would come after,
insuring that the transcendent beauty of this place,
would not go unfelt and unnoticed.
Hill Crowned Lake
Hangzhou, a magical ring of lush hills,
Surrounding a golden lake of adoration.
To simply call it heaven on earth may fit,
But it is too simple an identification.
Here, gazing across the still lake,
Through curving roofed pavillion amidst water
Beyond, seeing unto full forests,
Abundant progeny of honored tree mothers and fathers,
Now ancient memory.
Sloping up the long hills bearing still those trees,
Giving them a vantage point for the scaling views of
The hill runged lake, hill crowned lake;
Tall emerald and livid jewels tower around,
A clear, placid lake, pale silver mirror wide.
One can feel that phenomenon, that reality
Which I have uniquely felt here in China.
It is that phenomenon of a mutual sculpting,
Between the land and the people,
The sense that the spirit of human beings,
Has been verily intertwined with the hills and trees,
During natures unfolding throughout time.
It may be a result of a tradition,
Where some people (artists, musicians, scholars, people)
are more deeply open to the reception
of, and sculpting of,
the essence within natural landscapes.
(It is a rather weak attempt to communicate this deep feeling I felt in Hangzhou)
AN OLD HANGZHOU MAN
The whole experience, near Divine, or well, just interesting.
Pre-cognition stirred into recollected thoughts,
How Hessler at teahouses opened to those near,
That they would friendly meet and Hessler hear;
So sitting upon West Lake,
Gorgeous Hangzhou treed hills about,
With cup of tea on table,
Amidst Chinese Study,
These thoughts arise as he approaches.
And seeing my study he sits.
And learning I'm American he's moved.
An elderly man with wide, brown eyes,
Clear, but wells of deep saddness,
And tenderness, and confusion.
White hair, but in his tan suit he looks not so old.
He shares his deep appreciation of America with sincere vigor,
Telling how they helped defeat the Japanese.
As I understand his words, the conditioned thought to "teach" arises,
But then consciousness and compassion forbids.
Instead of teaching ideals of forgiveness and other words, I ask,
"How old are you?" "65" ....and here we are in East China,
My mind flashes to the past, through him I see the pain,
Immense suffering of his
A Leap and a Trip
Here is where I sat, sipped 'cha', and met that old man. I also leaped over the water to the amusement of the waitresses. They said I was very "lihai." I thought it was very Jedi like. family, friends, environment,
Nanjing, the sorrow of all which still reached him in,
His early years though it happened a decade of so before.
I suddenly understood how important it was for him
to thus express this gratitude and humbly I let him,
Only saddened by the existence of this little diminished grievence (Between Chinese and Japanese).
But I could see his mind, his past, and what he thought was well deserved thanks,
Which he felt to give Americans.
Then he gave me a book he wrote, which seems, very interestingly, self-published.
I can feel that in pouring his studies, thoughts, and feelings into this book,
His sense of connectedness to history was only intensified, hence his need
To thank me for the deeds of American forefathers, which only indirectly benefited China,
If benefit it be called...can War breed such?
No but even of evil, good shall come, or it shall come to good,
As turning the dark night meets the ever shining sun.
And there he went with a blessing of Peace.
I hope it will take root.
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