Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s quote comes from the Chinese poet of the Song Dynasty, Su Shi (1037-1101).

One of the great literary figures in China’s history, he was also an accomplished artist and civil servant, as well as a student of Buddhist meditation.  Despite banishment by more than one political administration in his lifetime, he “demonstrated…optimism and lack of bitterness,” even composing poetry to his oppressors.

The entry of Su Shi in the Encyclopedia Britannica says of his work:  ”Emphasizing spontaneity and expressiveness, he made significant efforts to loosen poetic conventions on form and content, especially in ci, and became known as the founder of the haofang (‘heroic abandon’) school of writing. The optimism Su demonstrated in his private and political life can be seen also in his poems, many of which vividly describe his own experiences.”

Here’s the quote–which I found in my brand new Dharma Days calendar, which was put together by the San Francisco Zen Center’s Dairyu Michael Wenger:

One desires pleasure and fears a hard life. These are sentiments one entertains before leading the so-called pleasurable or hard life. After one is in it, one tries to think of the envy and the fear and finds that they are gone. Then where are the pleasurable and unpleasureable moments after they are past? They seem to be like a sound, a shadow, a breeze, or a dream. Even these four things are somehow more tangible. Besides, how is one ever going to find happiness by countering one illusion with another illusion? I wish I could express this deep truth to you, but I cannot.