Santa Fe, NM
Morning Star Retreat
Not falling into being or non-being--do you really understand this?
Everyone longs to leave the flux of life,
not just to live in some perfect harmony,
but to return and sit by the charcoal fire.
For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?
The voice of the cuckoo is calling you home.
Hundreds of flowers fall, yet that voice is not stilled;
even deep in jumbled mountains, it is calling clearly.
In a spring outside time, flowers bloom on a withered tree;
you ride a jade elephant backwards, chasing the winged dragon-deer;
now as you hide far beyond innumerable peaks--
the white moon, a cool breeze, the dawn of a fortunate day.
Morning Star Retreat
Not falling into being or non-being--do you really understand this?
Everyone longs to leave the flux of life,
not just to live in some perfect harmony,
but to return and sit by the charcoal fire.
For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?
The voice of the cuckoo is calling you home.
Hundreds of flowers fall, yet that voice is not stilled;
even deep in jumbled mountains, it is calling clearly.
In a spring outside time, flowers bloom on a withered tree;
you ride a jade elephant backwards, chasing the winged dragon-deer;
now as you hide far beyond innumerable peaks--
the white moon, a cool breeze, the dawn of a fortunate day.
- Dongshan