Wang Jinggong's Poetry Annotations Supplementary Notes

Author: Wang Anshi (Song Dynasty)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features:
My Heart① My Heart in childhood, saw no good in anything.
Intending to walk the path of wisdom, I alone lamented my late awakening.
First hearing of guarding virtue to death, I then spared no effort.
As I faced hardship and peril, I realized my body was not to be preserved.
Yet still, I regarded worldly learning, seeking to exhaust its pursuit.
In later years, I knew that the heart of childhood,
Sufficient to forget old age.④ [Note 1① From The Record of Transmitting Light: "Seeing as green, seeing as yellow, seeing as neither green nor yellow."
From the Mirror of the Dharma Realm by Master Zhixing: "For instance, when seeing green and white objects, the objects are inherently empty. Neither 'I am green' nor 'I am white' are eye consciousness or concurrent consciousness fabricating distinctions as green and white.
Using intention to distinguish as color, using speech to distinguish as green, are all intentional and verbal delusions.
Because the six sense objects are dull, they cannot independently name or call one color.
Since all phenomena are thus, lacking inherent nature, they are all intentional and verbal delusions."] [Addition in Gengyin]
Intentional and verbal delusions: The Character of Liu Jun: "Analyzing human emotions and natural laws, it exhausts its subtlety, and through Zen observation, it is the consciousness."
Consciousness is the same as intentional and verbal delusions.① The Sayings: "Guarding the path of virtue to death."
If one realizes all phenomena are empty, then the body and liver-brain are not to be spared. [Commentary]
Turning over to illuminate, very enlightening, reaching others' unattainable.
The Joyful Journey chapter: "Song Rongzi still laughed at it."
Bai Tao: "Therefore, the heart in old age, merges with the mystery of creation." [Addition in Gengyin]
Childhood Heart: Mencius speaks of "the great person not losing the heart of an infant."
The poet's verse is close to this.
No striving No striving, no blame,
More connections, more regrets①.
Things follow chaos,
The Dao meets tranquility②.
Mozi truly suffered③,
Zhuangzi, I love④.
Nothing in all things to return to,
This saying still holds. [Note 1① The Biography of Ji Kang: "Admiring Yan and Zheng, enjoying the path of leisure, at peace with the world, his spirit and energy remained calm."
Tang Dynasty poetry: "Not wishing to meet many, lazy to speak names when encountering people."
This is also wary of too many connections. [Supplementary Annotation]
(yóu) means fault or (cuò). The Book of Songs, Xiao Ya, April: "Waste as devastation, no one knows its faults." Zheng Xuan's annotation: " is (cuò)."
② The empty is where the Dao gathers. The Dao De Jing: "The Dao gathers in emptiness." (táo rán) is seen in The Book of Documents, Eight Virtuous Waters (a typo, likely referring to a different text).
③ Mozi's teachings value frugality, promoting the virtuous, and clarifying spirits. Its flaw lies in drowning in the doctrine of universal love without distinguishing near and far, hence "self-suffering." [Addition in Gengyin]
Self-suffering: Mozi called the Dao, "In the past, Yu controlled the flood, diverting rivers and seas, and scattered the four (barbarians) and the nine states." etc.
Yu was a great sage, yet his body labored for the world like this. Later Mozi followers wore coarse robes and rough sandals, resting neither day nor night, taking self-suffering to the extreme, saying, "If one cannot do this, it is not Yu's way; it is not enough to be a Mozi."
④ [Addition in Gengyin] Zhuangzi's love: The Zhuangzi, Miscellaneous Chapters: "Formless and silent, changing without constant form. Death and life are the same as heaven and earth, and the divine is the same as movement. Vague, where to go? Sudden, where to rest? All things are included, nothing to return to. The ancient Daoist way exists in this. Zhuangzi heard its wind and was pleased. With wandering and boundless speech, without end or boundary, he freely (zì shì) without restraint, not bound by narrow views."
Illness Recovers, the New Cool of Early Autumn,
Old Fire's Residue, Murky.
Peach Branches in Hot Humidity,
Disheveled Hair Rushed the Dawn③.
Illness Passed, Awakened Clean,
Moving the Cot, Leaning Alone to Sleep,
Joyful but Afraid of Counting the Days③. [Note]
① Han Shi's Linked Verses on Cooling Off: "Golden gentleness still low, old fire's watch grows murky." [Supplementary Annotation]
(zhì jīn) refers to the air of early autumn, anciently associating the west with gold.
② Yang Xiong's Anti-Song of Chu: "Frustrated by the hot and murky." Ying Shao's annotation: "Hot and murky means filthy and turbid." Jin Zhuo: "Commonly refers to water and wine not cold."