(Minghui.org) “Good articles are meant to be written – all it takes is the inspiration of a skillful scholar.”
This is a famous line from the poem “Articles” by Lu You, a well-known poet in the Southern Song Dynasty. Though this line may seem simple, its profound meaning has been exhibited numerous times in China’s five thousand years of civilization.
Wang Bo was a great scholar in the early Tang Dynasty. One day, while passing through Nanchang City, he was invited to a grand banquet held by the local governor, Yan.
The governor had wanted to use this occasion for his son-in-law to present a pre-written preface for the poem, “Pavilion of Prince Teng,” to show off his son-in-law's talent. Most of the guests were privy to this, and politely declined when the governor made a show of having his servants offer the scholars a brush and paper to write their own prefaces.
Wang Bo, however, had no idea that this was just for show. Taking the proffered brush, he began writing on the spot. The governor was furious with Wang's lack of cooperation and retired to his room, but asked for Wang's writing to be brought to him anyway.
At the beginning, the governor thought nothing of the first few lines Wang Bo had written, but became increasingly impressed as he read on. In the end he was so moved that he rushed back out to the banquet to see what Wang Bo was writing with his own eyes.
He praised the young scholar: “We have a true genius here. [This piece of writing] will last forever!” (See ref in “Collected storied from the Tang”)
Wang Bo kept on writing while chatting and drinking with the other guests; before long, he had finished the preface. Everyone stood in awe at his creation.
That was how the famous “Preface of the Pavilion of Prince Teng” was created, which is still a canonical test in the Chinese high school curriculum today. There are many well-known verses in the preface, such as
“The sunset glow is flying alongside a lonely wild goose, and the autumn water matches the clear sky in perfect unison…… though being old, we should be more ambitious; how can we change our ambitions when our hair is turning grey? Distress as we may be in, we should hold more firmly to our integrity and never abandon our lofty aspiration……; Only lazy clouds and shadows in the water are seen these long days, Great changes have taken place in the years gone by. Where is the prince who had the pavilion built here? Beyond the balustrade silently the long river flows.”
Line after line, the beautiful “Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng” was written in the style of pianwen, a form particular with rhythm and antithesis. This style of writing was very difficult, and many scholars would often only pay attention to the form and lose meaning in their writing.
However, Wang Bo’s “Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng” wove together narratives, scenery descriptions and aspirations seamlessly, reflecting the young scholar’s ambition and longing to fully realize his talents. The resplendent expressions, the ideological content and the artistry of the writing had reached the pinnacle of classical Chinese prose.
More amazingly, such beautiful writing was done extemporaneously, without any previous thought or polishing. It's no wonder, then, that many people regard this writing as being “created by Heaven.”
The well-known Qing Dynasty scholar Ji Yun (also known as Ji Xiaolan) was also renowned for his quick thinking. Emperor Qianlong enjoyed chanting poetry and writing couplets, and he often tried to stump Ji Xiaolan for fun. Once, they visited an ancient temple in a mountain and Emperor Qianlong chanted the first line of a couplet:
“The character 'temple' is made up of characters 'inch' and 'soil', and we are chanting poetry by the temple: 'Depart the ancient temple on a sailing boat under the bright moon.'”
The line was a brilliant play on words, and it was obvious that the emperor wanted to see if it was too difficult for Ji Xiaolan to come up with a match. In no time, Ji Xiaolan made up the second line of the couplet:
“The character 'grove' is made up of two characters of 'wood', with the character 'display' underneath it, it forms a warning notice: “Enter the mountain forest with axes and bills at the proper time.”
The line “If axes and bills are taken to the mountain forest at the proper time, there will be more timber than needed” is from the book Mencius, which means that people should not fell trees in an abusive and indiscriminate manner, so that the forest will not be destroyed. Ji Xiaolan's second line of the couplet showed perfect antithetic parallelism and antithesis, and contained a much deeper artistic conception than the emperor's first line.
On another occasion, scholar Yuan Mei paid a visit to Ji Xiaolan. When he was leaving, he saw the majestic towers in the distance and chanted the first line of a couplet:
“Two towers are faintly seen, with seven levels, four sides and eight square-octagons.”
No one from Ji Xiaolan's family could come up with a proper second line, as it was very difficult to do so when the first line involved numbers. However, Ji Xiaolan said, “They've already got it.”
Yuan Mei didn't think much of what he said, but Ji Xiaolan shook his hand and said, “You see, the couplet is in how they are saying goodbye to you.”
He then said:
“One hand is waving, with five fingers, three long and two short.”
Yuan Mei was very impressed with Ji Xiaolan's quick thinking.
We can see that the mental process of both Ji Xiaolan's family members and Yuan Mei were at a normal speed. Ji Xiaolan's family members took a long time and still could not come up with anything good. However, Ji Xiaolan chanted the second line on the spot, creating a vivid and long lasting image. Was it just a coincidence?
It makes people wonder why these great scholars always seemed to have brilliant ideas swimming about in their heads, just waiting for an opportunity. They did not even need to think and were able to come up with perfect answers in no time. They could write beautifully and it was definitely not from passing inspiration alone.
However, sometimes their ways of thinking were also very common and ordinary. For example, both Wang Bo and Ji Xiaolan were arrested for violating the law for personal interest, and the way they behaved was far more earthly than when they composed their poetry. How could there be such a contrast?
Master said in “Fa Teaching Given at the New York Fa Conference on the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Dafa’s Introduction to the Public”,
“Some people are thinking about a phrase that we call “deep thinking and careful pondering.” In reality, when many people do something, a bright idea suddenly occurs and they just do it. They just thought about it and did it, and that thought did not go through deep thinking and careful pondering. They did not go through careful thinking, yet they did very well. Why? This is an issue many people are thinking about, and scientists are thinking about it as well. Such a mature idea just came out and was accomplished in an instant without careful deliberation, careful pondering, and a germination process. Why is that? They cannot explain it clearly. In fact, the human body is not this little bit on the surface, but in each and every layer there is your body, your thoughts, and your cells, and they are all part of your entire body. When you do something, you act on the surface, yet when you do something, your entire cells are moving and thinking, and at the same time this is happening not just in one dimension. The more microscopic a dimension is, the faster its time, and the greater its power. On this side you feel that you just think about it slightly, but on the other side, you have thought about it for so long that perhaps a few years have passed, since they are not in the same dimension.”
I have come to the understanding from Master's teaching that writing articles and poems is also cultivation. Disregarding the possible role our assistant spirits may play, if we cultivate well, our thinking would be empowered on the microscopic level and ideas would emerge like a bubbling spring.
Then, why is it that most literary scholars and eminent writers had to choose their words with great care and deliberation? There have been many masterful pieces of writing produced this way. Is it because the writers did not do well in cultivating themselves?
This is similar to the issue of sudden and gradual enlightenment. There are always more people who come to enlightenment bit by bit than those who can grasp it instantly, and there have been very few people overall who could master uncanny skills all at once. Most people would need to constantly improve themselves before they can produce great pieces of writing, including Ji Xiaolan, who also needed repeated deliberation and editing when he was compiling his works.
“Gradual enlightenment” aims to reach the same ultimate goal as “sudden enlightenment,” and many articles were indeed written through a repeated deliberation process. Great pieces of writing, either in a luxurious style or in simple language with meaningful profundity, may have far-reaching connotations that convey hidden truths.
Could such writings be accomplished simply by wracking one’s brains for ideas, or by one’s own cultivation? If so, wouldn’t this contradict the concept of our opening quote? But in fact, they are not mutually exclusive.
Master said in “Teaching the Fa at the International Experience-Sharing Conference in Beijing”,
“In fact, when a being is able to enter into a more microscopic level, it is already in a larger, higher place: it is in heaven, because the more microscopic the particle, the higher the level. This is a very vast perspective.”
My understanding is: thinking from a microscopic level follows the same logic as “Good articles are meant to be written – all it takes is the inspiration of a skillful scholar” because on a microscopic level, one's body is already in heaven and his way of thinking has already been formed there.
It is very fast on a microscopic level, but very slow at the human level. In the past, when scholars cultivated – regardless of whether they understood the truth at once or slowly – they all wanted to return to heaven. In other words, they all wanted to assimilate to the microscopic level. As for poems and articles, only those that transcended the ordinary realm were regarded as good. So these scholars aimed for creating immortal words that could reach the realm of the extraordinary. But to do that, they had to first elevate their spiritual realm and cultivate.
Therefore, most of those accomplished scholars in ancient times made great scholarly achievements only after they had experienced hardships, improved their xinxing and become broad-minded. Wang Bo, Su Shi, Xin Qiji, Ji Xiaolan and others all reached the pinnacle of their literary scholarship after they had experienced enormous tribulations, and their poems and writings also became more spiritual in content and more profound in terms of artistic realm.
These days, we don't require artistry when it comes to writing reports to expose the persecution, and it is considered fine as long as we can report the facts clearly. However, in writing these articles to save sentient beings, we still have a set of requirements, albeit different ones.
Our articles are presented to everyday people, and just like Shen Yun, the better the articles, the more effective they are in saving people. Since the writing process itself is also a cultivation process and the quality of writing is closely connected with our own cultivation, we should pay more attention to our cultivation.
If we hold onto desires, addictions, fame, jealousy, a competitive mentality, showing off and selfishness, et cetera – our cultivation state will never improve and our writing will stagnate as well. The writing mirrors the writer. The realm of writing can never transcend the cultivation realm of its writer. Therefore, the most effective way to improve our writing skills is to be very diligent in our cultivation in Dafa, to constantly let go of our various desires and attachments and make rapid improvement in cultivation. Only then can we save sentient beings more broadly and in depth, can we transcend history and create our future, so as to fulfill our mission as Dafa disciples.
The above is only my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything improper.