見山是山 (West & East)

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of dream

It is not now as it hath been of yore;--

Turn wheresoe’er I may

By night or day

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

--ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

 by William Wordsworth

Here the poet describes how he experienced a surge of joy as a child when he was granted an access to the world of innocence and instinct. This access to the world of innocence and instinct, however, has lost as the poet grows up. Later in the poem, he says that though he has lost some part of the glory of nature and of experience, he will take delight in “primal sympathy,” and in the fact that the years bring a mature consciousness—“a philosophic mind.” In the final stanza, the poet says that this mind—as opposed to the child’s feeling of immortality—enables him to love nature and natural beauty all the mre, for each of nature’s objects can stir him to though

This poem reminds me of a well-known 公案(gong an4), records of 禪(chan2) Zen masters' words or behavior, which goes as 見山是山(jian4 shan shi4 shan),見山不是山(jian4 shan bu2 shi4 shan)，見山又是山(jian4 shan you4 shi4 shan). Though different in meaning, they both refers to a transformation of mind we could experience as human beings.

The公案is recorded in the book 指月錄(zhi3 yue4 lu4), where a Zen master states three phases of his life as a reflection of the process before or after he started to 參禪(can chan2), trying to reach the understanding of dhyana. 

The first stage is見山是山，見水是水(jian4 shui3 shi4 shui3)which is ordinary people’s state of mind. They see the mountains and waters as what they are. They take the material world as a real, substantial one and are often obsessive with this world. They can’t tell which part of it is real or fake. Their mind are influenced or controlled by the outer world. For example, a man at this stage might be carried away by a beautiful woman.

After he started to learn Buddhism and參禪, he began to見山不是山，見水不是水(jian4 shui3 bu2 shi4 shui3).To him, a mountain isn’t a mountain while a water isn’t a water any longer, because he begins to realize that what he sees is only an unreal illusion. He separates his heart from the physical world to avoid its impact. Take the example above, he is no longer puzzled or stirred by a beautiful woman.

The final stage is見山又是山，見水又是水(jian4 shui3 you4 shi4 shui3). A mountain appears to be a mountain, and a water, a water again. He gets the illumination that his heart IS the Buddha’s heart. Everything he sees is the reflection of his heart. Dhyana exists nowhere else but in his heart. He can “kill” the outer world with his heart, which has “settled down.” A pretty woman still appears to be a pretty woman. But his heart isn’t “moved” as we say 動心(dong4 xin).

 

Chinese are not necessarily Buddhists or into Zen. But this statement of heart is often referred in daily conversation as to describe the speaker’s state of mind. Very often we have doubts in terms of our work, family life or the world. Through the ongoing experiences or our meditations, our lives show different façades to us, no matter how different they are from Wordsworth’s or Zen masters’.

禪=禅

指月錄=指月录

動心=动心d