Chou Meng-Tieh's "Angling" 周夢蝶的『垂釣』

Attending a talk on Zen wisdom last night piqued my interest in Zen-ish poetry. So I read a short poem by a Taiwanese poet born in Xichuan county of Henan (河南省淅川縣) called Chou Meng-tieh  周夢蝶 (b. 1921) originally called 周起述. According to the Wikipedia, he joined the China Youth Corp青年軍 in 1948, came to Taiwan during the Civil War, leaving his wife and two sons and a daughter in the PRC, starting to write poetry 4 years later at age 32, publishing in the Central Daily News (中央日報 「青年戰士報副刊」), retiring in as a veteran 1955 and started selling second hand books outside of the Astoria Cafe (明星咖啡廳) in Taipei and then joined a poetry society called Blue Star Poetry Society (藍星詩社) and published his first book of poetry "Land of Solitude" (孤獨國) in 1959. He continued doing that until 1980 when he was forced to close his stall owing to gastric ulcers. He was silent and introvert. He started studying about Buddhism in 1962 and did Zen meditation in front of his bookstore, becoming a public spectacle in busy Taipei.  In 1966, at age 45, he published his second volume of poetry Grass of Returning Spirit《還魂草.》. He only returned to the PRC for the first time at age 77 but it was too late for the kind of family reunion he expected. In 2003, at age 82, he published his two final volumes of poetry Rendezvous《約會》and 13 White Chrysanthemums《十三朵白菊花. 》.  He won the National Culture and Arts Foundation Literature Laureate Award. During his life, he worked successively as book seller, primary school teacher, cemetery watchman. Here's his short poem on fishing and my translation.

 

垂釣

是誰? 是誰使荷葉，使荇藻與綠萍，頻頻搖動？

攬十方無邊風雨於一釣絲！執竿不顧。

那人由深林第一聲鶯，坐到落日啣半規。

坐到四十五十六十七十之皆與肩被花壓彎，打濕。,,,,

有蜻蜓豎在他的頭上，有影如僧在他垂垂的眼皮上，

多少個長夢短夢短短夢，都悠悠隨長波短波短短波以俱逝----

在蘆花淺水之東醒來時。魚竿已不見，

為受風吹？或為巨鱗啣去？

四顧蒼茫，輕煙外，

隱隱有星子失足跌落水聲，鏗然。

Angling

Who's that?  Who's that who makes the lotus leaves, the yellow heart algae and the green duckweeds tremble?

Embracing boundless winds and rains from all directions with a fishing line! Holding on to the fishing rod without looking.

The man sat there when the oriole first sang from deep within the forest until half the sundial was swallowed by the setting sun.

Sitting there until his back and shoulder of forty fifty sixty seventy were bent by falling flowers, drenched...

A dragonfly stood upon his head, the shadow like a monk upon his droopy droopy eyelids,

How many long dreams, short dreams, short short dreams, all vanished slowly slowly along with long waves, short waves, short short waves---

He awoke to the east of the reed flowers in the shallows. The fishing rod was gone,

Blown off by the wind? Or swallowed by a giant fish scale?

Looking around the green expanse, over that light mist,

It sounded vaguely like a star falling into the water, splash!

This is a very unique poem. There is a certain directness in the way he writes. He appears to wish us to feel his thoughts directly and reproduces his sentiments as they occur within his brain or his heart. He starts the poem with two questions, as if he did not know what the answers were. Of course, he does. But he writes as if he did not.  He presents us with clear images: a man sitting all alone. The man was intent on fishing. But he was not looking. He held on tightly to the fishing rod. The winds blew, the rains fell. But the did not care. He was intent only on his angling! He seemed very concentrated, focused on one thing only: catching what he hoped would be a big fish from the water. There winds were blowing. Hence the trembling of the duckweeds etc, on the surface of the water.

He gradually builds up on that initial image through first sound: the song of the oriole which marks the beginning of that meditation and then sight: the sun swallowing half the sundial at sunset, presumably referring to the shape of the sundial which remained bright on the side where the sun was shining upon it and dark and invisible on the side behind the vertical triangular plate on the surface of the sundial. Then he enhances the time by the repetition of number of years he had been sitting thus from 40 to 70. His back and shoulder were bent by so many flowers (ladies?) that he became almost a statue, all life drained out of him. He was certainly so treated by the dragonfly which stood upon his head. But he remained sitting, like a monk deep in meditation. He remains all alone. His only company after so many years is the dragonfly!

By the time he awoke, he was already 70! In the meantime, the winds and rains that he ignored had already blown away all his dreams. In the Chinese cultural tradition and language, the words "the winds and the rains" are synonymous with the ups and downs of life. He was said to be "drenched ..." The fishing rod was gone. He started by fishing for something, hoping to catch something and ended without the instrument of his initial search. Why east of the reeds? The east is the land where the sun rises, where hope arises. But why the disappearance of the fishing line and rod? He suggest two possible explanations: blown away by the wind, symbol of time or swallowed by a "giant scale", a metonymy for a big fish. Whatever the real cause might have been, he looked around after waking up only to find the environment filled with something which prevented from seeing clearly, a light mist or a cloud of smoke. Then from sight, he reverts to sound, like in the beginning of the poem. He seemed to have heard a star falling by accident or error into the water. It made a splash: the abrupt crash and impact of enlightenment upon that water at whose edge he had been sitting for 70 years! And the water is the water of the lake of enlightenment. It made a loud noise only because it was so serene: the state of nirvana, of clarity. Nothing disturbs its surface any more, unlike at the beginning of the poem when the duckweeds etc. were rocked by the winds or rains or something else. His heart has become as serene as the unruffled surface of the lake!

The poem ends with a sound, the clear sound of the splash of the falling star. It was the evening of his life. The sun had been replaced by the stars and his star has fallen into the water within which he had been trying all his life to catch a big fish! The angler had no more need of the fishing rod! What must be caught is not out there in the world. It's something which has always been there, inside his heart, his mind. He has no more need of any external and material fishing rod. All he needs is a change of perspectives! He has realized the illusory nature of everything. Nothing seem to matter any more. He and Nature has become one.

The disappearance of the fishing rod has a religious meaning. The Buddha taught us not to get attached to anything, even something we normally regard as "good", "beneficial". For the Buddhists, this means the dharma (法). The dharma is merely an instrument, a vehicle (乘), something which helps us to attain enlightenment. The Buddha taught us that once we have attained enlightenment, we may throw away the instrument, the ladder, the vehicle, the dharma! The poet cleverly introduces this idea by the use of the word "looking" (顧). In line 2, the angler was not looking. When he woke up, in the east, at the end of the poem, he was looking around over the mist of the intervening years and he discovered that it appeared that a star has fallen into the water, the place where he was hoping to catch something when he first started many many years ago! But he was no longer using his eye-sight which had misled him for so long. He used his ears. He was listening to the message inside his heart! And he heard! The truth was not in the heavens, it was in the here and now, amidst this ephemeral world, if only we knew where to look or listen.

The essence of Zen is sudden enlightenment often under the most unexpected but otherwise perfectly "ordinary" circumstances. The lessons have always been there. Only that we failed to see them. We fail to see because we do not see with the right kind of eyes, the right kind of perspectives. Accordingly to the Buddha, we fail to see only because we are blinded by our emotions" avarice or greed or desire or attachment, addiciton or fetishism to objects or matters we like (貪) anger or hatred towards those people or matter who or which appear to oppose our will or desires (瞋),stupidity, foolishness, confusion, ignorance, lack of knowledge, insight or unwillingness to learn (癡)  and excess, immoderation (妄). Here, in this poem, what the poet seems to depict is that fault of 癡.  It was his 癡 which made him stay there for so many years  He failed because he did not know how to get non-attached  (不執 ) or disburden himself (放下). He began to realize his mistakes when he turned his eyes away from his life's project of catching the big fish and began to look around at Nature with which he has now become merged, indistinguishable, symbolized by the dragonfly landing on him as if he were part of Nature.