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This was inspired during my daily on a cold autumn day. The original theme was somewhat mundane and took me two days of thinking to come up with an idea that I deemed OK. The refinement and changes took over two months, mostly putting it on the backburner until I was forced to complete it so that I can post the poems written during my Hawaii trip.

1 寒山鐘聲晚來風 The night wind from the Cold Mountain is sending the temple sounds,
2 難盡一杯何相送 ‘tis difficult to finish this toast to your departure.
3 明朝莫訴昨夜恨 When morning comes, speak no more of last night’s regret,
4 拾得紅塵總是夢 Picking up the red dust, in the end, is but a dream.

1 “Cold Mountain” – this refers to the Cold Mountain Temple in Chang Tsi’s (張繼), most famous poem, Night Mooring by the Maple Bridge” (楓橋夜泊), “…姑蘇城外寒山寺, 夜半鐘聲到客船”. The Temple was named after the monk “Cold Mountain”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanshan_(poet)

2 Literally, “difficult to finish this cup”

4 This line is ambiguous because of the first two characters. Textually, 拾得 means “able to pick up”. It is also the name of another monk who is a friend of “Cold Mountain”.

“red dust” can also be taken at its face value or a Buddhist term used to denote the mundane world. In the first interpretation, “handling worldly affairs is in the end is but a dream” – to console the author to take things not too seriously. We may part today, but in the future we may meet again.

In the second interpretation, whatever was written by Shide on the mundane world are just exoteric and ethereal like dreams with no place in the real world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shide_(monk)

Sunday, 17 October 2021