Su Shi Chaoyun (Su Shi Chaoyun): The Heartless Waste Land and the Loving Sky
Su Shi’s (1036-1101 AD) achievements in poetry, writings, scholarship and calligraphy have been well known and recited by future generations, but his career was also known for its hardships, and he was relegated to a faraway place for many times in his life. Fortunately, his wife and concubine Chaoyun accompanied him through the difficulties of reality and gave him spiritual strength. The encounter of Su Shi’s career and the situation of marriage and love can be described as “a loveless and deserted place with a loving sky”, which is just like a miracle and touches the heart of a thousand years.
Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist
During his thirty-four to thirty-eight years of age, Su Shi left behind memories of the Su Causeway and the willows in Hangzhou [1]. At the beginning of September in the seventh year of Emperor Xianning of the Song Dynasty (1074 AD), Su Shi received the grant of “transferring to Mizhou”, and just before he left Hangzhou, “Chaoyun came back”, and Su Shi took in Chaoyun. At that time, Chaoyun was still a twelve-year-old girl, but she was quite intelligent and resourceful, admired Su Shi’s character and talent, and decided to follow him. Later, they left a footnote of a thousand-year-old love story in the West Lake of Huizhou for posterity.
Wang Chaoyun (1062-1096 AD) was Su Shi’s confidante and the pillar of Su Shi’s difficult career journey in the latter half of his life. Su Shi called Chaoyun as “Heavenly Lady Vimal”, symbolizing her purity; Chaoyun served Mr. Su Shi faithfully and respectfully, as one throughout his life. Chaoyun died at the age of thirty-four in Huizhou, and since then, Su Shi has been alone to guard the end, and has not married again.
During the Qing Dynasty (1801 AD), the Huizhou governor ordered the repair of Chaoyun’s tomb, and the inscription on the epitaph was written in stone: Chaoyun accompanied Su Shi’s life.
Mr. Su Shi’s concubine said Chaoyun, the word Zixia, surnamed Wang, a native of Qiantang. She served Mr. Su Shi for twenty-three years, and was loyal and respectful as one. She died in Huizhou in the third month of July of Shaosheng, at the age of 34. August Geng Shen, buried above the Feng Lake, southeast of Sichan Mountain. He was born with a son, Zun, who died before his time. Gai studied Buddhism from Bhikshuni Yi Chong. GMP also knew the general idea. He died chanting four verses of the Vajra Sutra to end. The inscription says: “Fudo is to look forward to, the basket is to rely on, such as your old heart, but Buddha stop returning.
I want to compare the West Lake with the West Son
Chaoyun came from a poor family in Qiantang, and was sent to a class of courtesans and dancers. It is not confirmed how Su Shi met Chaoyun, but it is said that Chaoyun offered songs and dances at a banquet on the West Lake, and met Su Shi after the dance by serving him wine.
There is a legend that Su Shi’s famous poem “Drinking on the Lake after the Rain” was inspired by the appearance of Chaoyun, the “Western Son”.
The water is brimming and clear, the mountains are empty and the rain is also strange.
I would like to compare West Lake with the West Son, but the light makeup and thick color always match.
Butterfly Lovers, Confidant
At the age of twelve, Chaoyun returned to Su Shi, and then learned to read and write from Su Shi. Chaoyun was smart and sensitive, and she was very respectful and considerate to Su Shi, and Su Shi’s hand and foot were reflected in her heart, and she had a thorough understanding of Su Shi’s heart.
One day after Su Shi retired from court, he slowly walked home after eating a stomach full of food. When he returned home, he pointed to his stomach and asked his concubines, “Do any of you know what I have in here?” One replied, “Articles.” Another one said, “Insight.” Su Shi shook his head, and Dynasty Cloud smiled and said, “Your belly is full of anachronisms.” Hearing this, Su Shi could not help but praise, “The only one who knows me is Chaoyun.”
Chaoyun knew Su Shi more than that, and whenever Su Shi was sad, he would make Chaoyun feel sad and shed tears. When Su Shi was relegated to the remote Huizhou, Chaoyun often played and sang the lyrics of “Butterfly Lovers” written by Su Shi to relieve Su Shi’s sorrow.
The flowers are fading and the apricots are small, when the swallows are flying, the green water is surrounded by people’s homes. The willow on the branch blows less and less, where is the grass at the end of the earth.
The wall of the swing outside the wall, outside the wall of pedestrians, the wall of beautiful people laughing. The laughter is gradually not heard, but the love is annoyed by the heartless.
At that time, whenever she sang “the willows on the branches are blowing less and less”, Chaoyun would hide her melancholy, and when she sang the next line “there is no grass at the end of the earth”, she even cried with sadness. When Su Shi inquired about the reason, Chaoyun replied, “The one thing I cannot finish is the phrase ‘Where is the grass at the end of the earth’.
Chaoyun cried because of “Where is the grass at the end of the earth”, not because she was sad about herself, but because she was sad about the fate of Su Shi, who was depressed repeatedly and wandered around the world like a willow. Su Shi understands, and deliberately laughs to understand her: “I am grieving for autumn, and you are starting to grieve for spring again! So “Butterfly Lovers” became Chaoyun’s special song, and after her death, Su Shi never listened to this song “Butterfly Lovers” again for the rest of his life.
Never leave, never give up, loyalty and respect as one
In 1079, the “Wutai Poetry Case” (commonly known as Wutai in the imperial court) broke out, which became a big turning point in Su Shi’s politics and career. Since then, Su Shi was repeatedly deported, and the more he was deported to Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou, the more remote he became, but his life was difficult from then on, and his life’s work also started from then on. “He left his last words in a poem, and was later relegated to the position of deputy envoy of Huangzhou regiment under the protection of Empress Cao and other officials.
Su Shi took Chaoyun as his concubine around the time he arrived at Huangzhou. When Chaoyun was seventeen years old, Su Shi gave her the word “Zi Xia” and taught her to read and write. After that, Chaoyun followed Su Shi from the beginning to the end without any regret during the ups and downs of Su Shi’s official career. In his tomb inscription, he described Chaoyun as “loyal and respectful” to Su Shi, a reference to such a life encounter.
Opened the Dongpo Snow Hall with Su Shi and opened up the Dongpo meat
When they were in Huangzhou, the income of Su Shi’s deputy envoy was only enough for them to live a straitened life. A family calloused hands to create land to cultivate to self-sufficiency, mowing grass on the east slope covered the snow hall, hot sun scorching wind, the face of the clouds covered with a layer of ink black, “blowing face like ink”. Su Shi’s name of “Dongpo Jushi” also started at that time. The famous “Dongpo meat” was also carefully prepared for Mr. Chaoyun. The clever Chaoyun used the cheap fatty pork from Huangzhou and simmered it slowly over a low fire to make a fragrant, glutinous, soft, fatty but not greasy meat, which gave Su Shi a happy heart amidst the hardship.
Later, Su Shi was deported even further away, and his step-room Leun Zhi [2] also died, and finally, when he arrived at the pestilential and barbaric Huizhou, Su Shi was accompanied only by Chaoyun. At that time, Su Shi was fifty-seven years old and Chaoyun was thirty-one. During the four years of life in Huizhou, Su Shi and Chaoyun were close to each other and their mutual understanding was strong. Qin Guan described Chaoyun as “as beautiful as a spring garden, with eyes like the morning sun”. Su Shi lamented that Chaoyun followed him in life and death, and wrote a poem entitled “Chaoyun Poem” [3] to thank Chaoyun, a pure “Vimala woman” who could always understand Zen meaning. “.
The realm of Vimal is empty
Accompanied by Chaoyun, Su Shi lived his life in the south of the Lingnan, “eating three hundred lychees a day, not resigning to grow up as a Lingnan man”. They had a son, “Zizun”, nicknamed Dryer, unfortunately died. Su Shi gave a poem to Chaoyun. Su Shi gave a poem to Chaoyun, tacitly praising her wish to cultivate, “white hair and pale face, it is the realm of Vimal is empty”, once the elixir of immortality is refined, into the immortal mountain is no longer bound by dusty fate. Their lifelong passion for knowing each other is transformed into a noble friendship of seeking the Way together.
The high emotion has been carried away by the dawn clouds
In the summer following the loss of his son, Chaoyun contracted an epidemic. When Chaoyun came to the end of the moment, at the age of thirty-four, she left first. Chaoyun recited the four verses of “Vajra Sutra” to leave the world: “All the laws of existence are like dreams and bubbles, like dew and lightning, when doing so”. This is also the enlightenment of Chaoyun, who was devoted to Su Shi all his life, in his short regretful life.
Su Shi built the “Six Ru Pavilion” on Chaoyun’s tomb to commemorate her, and the name came from this verse. Su Shi buried Chaoyun in Huizhou West Lake next to Sichan Temple in accordance with his last wish. On the white plum tree in the cemetery, there is a couplet written by Su Shi himself, the eulogy “West River Moon – Plum Blossom” [5], with the icy posture and jade bones of plum blossoms, reflecting Chaoyun’s jade character, “high feelings have been empty with the dawn clouds”, implying that his emotional world is also empty with Chaoyun, and Su Shi has been alone in an empty room since then, “not dreaming with pear blossoms “.
【Notes
[1] Hangzhou water salty depend on the West Lake water spring supply livelihood, because the lake silted up, Su Shi petition to open the lake. Yuan You in, Shi both open the lake, because the accumulation of turnip grass for the dike, several miles apart, across the south and north of the two mountains, planted willow, Lin Xi list said “Su Gong dike”, pedestrians will be, because Shi stand shrine on the dike. (Song Shu – Zhi fiftieth river and drainage seven)
[2] Wang Leunzhi was the cousin of Su Shi’s late wife Wang Fu, who privately admired and loved Su Shi and married him in the third year after Wang Fu’s death.
[3] Su Shi’s poem “Chaoyun
It is not like Yang Zhi to say goodbye to Le Tian, just like Tong De to accompany Ling Xuan. Anu Loxiu is not the same as the old, and the Heavenly Maiden Vimal always understands Zen.
The scrolls of scripture and medicine are new, and the dancing clothes and singing fans are old causes. I will go to the three mountains after the completion of the dan, and I will not become a cloud and rain immortal in Wuyang.
[4] “Chaoyun Poem – Preface
It is said that Lotian had a poem about a strained camel horse and a willow branch, and he was too old and sick to go. However, Mengde has a poem: “Spring is over and the flurries cannot stay, so who will go with the wind? The same is true of Lotte: the sick and Lotte live with each other, and spring returns with Fan Zi for a while. Then it is Fan Su went after all. I have several concubines, four or five years one after another resigned, only Chaoyun, with the south to move. Because of reading Le Tian collection, playfully composed this poem. Chaoyun surname Wang, Qian Tang people. He had a son named Gan’er, who died before his time.
[5] “West River Moon – Plum Blossoms
The jade bones are worried about the miasma, the ice posture has its own fairy wind. The sea fairy sometimes sent to explore the fragrant bush, hanging upside down green hair young phoenix.
The face is often smeared with powder, wash makeup does not fade lips red. The high feelings have been followed by the dawn clouds, not with the pear blossom dream.
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