白雲抱幽石:I was looking up the origin of this zen phrase because unlike some of the other phrases, this one seems to have many metaphors. What I found about it is that this phrase is a line of a poem written by a poet from Tang Dynasty to depict the place he lived at. The poem was very short, only 4 lines, 20 characters, and every line is full of loneliness and the feeling of timelessness. Knowing the background of the poem, now look again at this zen phrase. It is a self-complete sentence that can exist on its own, hence probably why it was chosen as a zen phrase. Where can you see clouds? We can see clouds everywhere but where can you see clouds surrounding rocks? You have to be close enough to the rocks to see them. This means that the poet lived in a place that was hard to reach and high in the mountain where he could easily see this scene. Suddenly, we the readers are transported to where the poet was, no matter where we are at the moment, even in the center of a busy city. This sense of space that creates the feeling of loneliness and timelessness is probably what this zen phrase is trying to give to the viewers. No matter where you are, this zen phrase will take you away to this quiet and chill vantage point where you can see white clouds surrounding rocks. To say more about how amazing this phrase is, I would like to point out the many contrasting properties about white clouds and the rocks. This comes back to the question that Gunji-sensei asked me to talk about how to interpret the character 幽. This character literally means dark and can also be associated with spirit. Because of the association with spirit, whenever we see this character, there is a sense of quietness and antiquity along with darkness. Isn’t it clever to use this character with rock 石 to contrast with white clouds?
-- Min 「幽」has multiple meanings in Chinese: serene, tranquil, profound, secluded, hidden, dark, or dim.「白雲抱幽石」 presents a vivid visualization that the white cloud(s) embrace(s) the silent black rock. The white clouds are soft, gentle, vivid, and do not have fixed shapes whereas the silent rock is hard, tough, and rigid. In our life, each of us has our own silent rocks or dark moments. They may be childhood traumas, hardships, or other uncomfortableness. Naturally, no one wants to experience traumas or any kind of hardships in our own life. However, life is impermanent and we cannot just accept the positive things that happen to us while rejecting those negative experience. What 「白雲抱幽石」advocates is that instead of trying to get rid of those negative moments, those edgy rocks in our life, we can instead live like a white cloud and leave space for those dark moments, embracing those darkness and living in harmony with them. If we can allow more space and embrace them with kind acceptance, we may be able to find out the power from those darkness and understand ourselves better. When we are in those dark moments, we should also trust our own power that we can relax and become more resilient to live through those dark moments in our life. -- Yang
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AuthorTea students in the Urasenke Urbana-Champaign association Archives
January 2024
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