by Mike O’Connor
Mike O’Connor is a poet, writer, and translator of Chinese literature. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, he is also an honorary fellow of Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published eight books, including When the Tiger Weeps, and translated works such as Where the World Does Not Follow: Buddhist China in Picture and Poem and When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains: Selected Poems of Chia Tao. O’Connor currently serves as publisher of Empty Bowl Press in Port Townsend, Washington.
Temple of Mt. Wu-t’ai |
Photo: Chung Ling |
—for Ray Greeott
IN SPRING, Year One
of Emperor Wen Tsung’s reign
(827 of the Christian era),
Buddhist poet Wu-pen,
once a monk,
traveled to resplendent
Ch’ing-lung temple
in the capital Ch’ang-an
where, in monastic days,
he persevered in Zen.
T’ai-yuan, master at Ch’ing-lung
and Wu-pen’s former teacher,
apprised of Wu-pen’s visit
to the sangha, sent
word to him.
At the great Buddha Hall
of that famed temple
in earth’s most populous city
at the time, the master
greeted Wu-pen with a bow
and led him to a private wing for tea.
“You’ve come back to us, Wu-pen,”
teased T’ai-yuan. “That’s the thing
about the world—there are
a lot of foxes hiding there.”
Wu-pen smiled and said,
“That’s true, and not a few
know how to sow delusion.”
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