Return to Yunmen
归 云 门
万 里 归 来 值 岁 丰
解 装 乡 墅 乐 无 穷。
甑 炊 饱 雨 湖 菱 紫
篾 络 迎 霜 野 柿 红。
坏 壁 尘 埃 寻 醉 墨
孤 灯 饼 饵 对 邻 翁。
微 官 行 矣 闽 山 去
又 寄 千 岩 梦 想 中。
Gui Yun Men
Wan li gui lai zhi sui feng
Jie zhuang xiang shu yue wu qiong.
Zeng chui bao yu hu ling zi
Mie luo ying shuang ye shi hong.
Huai bi chen ai xun zui mo
Gu deng bing er dui lin weng.
Wei guan xing yi min shan qu
You ji qian yan meng xiang zhong.
Return to Yunmen
Traveled thousands of miles to return and arrive from a valuable and graceful place
Limitless joy to lay down my load at my hometown country house.
Full of a rice steamer meal, rain-filled lake of purple water chestnuts
Thin bamboo strip nets touched by frost, open country persimmons red.
Broken down walls dusty and dirty, this drunk searches for his black writing ink
Solitary lantern and round flat cakes comfort the old man next door.
This petty government official back, having traveled into the Fujian mountains.
Thinking also of being in the middle of hundreds of rocky cliff dreams.
Notes:
Yunmen is a mountain, with a Buddhist monastery nearby, and the nickname for a man who was an abbot at this monastery. Both mountain and monastery are located near Shaozhou, northern Guangdong Province.
Yunmen Wenyan: (864-949 AD): He was a major Chan (Zen) Buddhist master during the Tang Dynasty. His realization of enlightenment came while he was in the mountains of Fujian Province under the guidance of Xuefeng Yicun. Yunmen is credited with founding the Yunmen school of Chan Buddhism, one of five major schools. This lineage remains today, having previously passed through the Linji School. He is remembered most for his style of using sudden shouts, staff blows, one word exclamations, and for compiling a list of koans to be used with his students.