"I Seem to be a Verb"
13 Phoebus 80 p.s.U.
The wind is part of the process
The rain is part of the process
-- Ezra Pound, Canto 74
Pound, beaten by rain and wind in his outdoor cage at Pisa, remembers a bit from Kung-fu-tse, who also knew hard times. I think a lot these days about Dao, the ideogram Ez translates as "the process," and which most Americans still spell old-style as Tao. More traditional renderings turn Dao into a capitalized abstraction such as "the Way" or "the Path," and anybody trying to understand them feels like their brain has just turned to oatmeal.
Although too ignorant of Chinese to trust my own judgement, I have always preferred Ez's rendering of Dao as "process" on the basis of Ernest Fenollosa's claim that ideograms render "noun and verb as one -- things in motion, motion in things." That fits the world of modern physics, of perception psychology and of what little I think I know of Chinese. You can imagine my delight when Daniel Coyle, a friend who recently [1999] earned a Ph.D. in Chinese studies, assured me that Pound got it right.
Dao, the process, seems more nitty-gritty and tangible since I acquired an apartment with a panoramic vista of Monterrey Bay and the surrounding hills. The view never seems quite the same twice. Waves, sun, fogs, seasons, dogs, dolphins, moons, planets, stars -- all seem flowing, as if every kind of evolution, cosmic to biological,parades before me.
More and more I lose contact with "me" and flow with all else that flows..the Dao-process.
An old proverb of the Middle Kingdom says, "The wise become Confucian in good times, Buddhist in bad times and Daoist in old age." If some pookah magick made me thirty years younger, in the present wretched state of this nation, I'd have to become a Buddhist. Old age has its advantages. When pain keeps me from writing, I eat a magick muffin, sit on the balcony and get totally lost in the Dao.
Yeah, even in the rain and wind.
R. A. Wilson (go to www.rawilson.com)
13 Phoebus 80 p.s.U.
The wind is part of the process
The rain is part of the process
-- Ezra Pound, Canto 74
Pound, beaten by rain and wind in his outdoor cage at Pisa, remembers a bit from Kung-fu-tse, who also knew hard times. I think a lot these days about Dao, the ideogram Ez translates as "the process," and which most Americans still spell old-style as Tao. More traditional renderings turn Dao into a capitalized abstraction such as "the Way" or "the Path," and anybody trying to understand them feels like their brain has just turned to oatmeal.
Although too ignorant of Chinese to trust my own judgement, I have always preferred Ez's rendering of Dao as "process" on the basis of Ernest Fenollosa's claim that ideograms render "noun and verb as one -- things in motion, motion in things." That fits the world of modern physics, of perception psychology and of what little I think I know of Chinese. You can imagine my delight when Daniel Coyle, a friend who recently [1999] earned a Ph.D. in Chinese studies, assured me that Pound got it right.
Dao, the process, seems more nitty-gritty and tangible since I acquired an apartment with a panoramic vista of Monterrey Bay and the surrounding hills. The view never seems quite the same twice. Waves, sun, fogs, seasons, dogs, dolphins, moons, planets, stars -- all seem flowing, as if every kind of evolution, cosmic to biological,parades before me.
More and more I lose contact with "me" and flow with all else that flows..the Dao-process.
An old proverb of the Middle Kingdom says, "The wise become Confucian in good times, Buddhist in bad times and Daoist in old age." If some pookah magick made me thirty years younger, in the present wretched state of this nation, I'd have to become a Buddhist. Old age has its advantages. When pain keeps me from writing, I eat a magick muffin, sit on the balcony and get totally lost in the Dao.
Yeah, even in the rain and wind.
R. A. Wilson (go to www.rawilson.com)
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
Take care of that back, Gil. Alright, ol' fella?
l8r