What Resides Inside the Body of Dharma (by Wang Wei)

This poem by Wang Wei is not easy to understand or to translate but I decided to give it a try anyway this morning.  Whatever its poetic merits may be, it is full of elliptical Chan insight. Maybe the best way to enjoy it is as a poetic gloss on Mahayana Buddhism -- emptiness that lacks all emptiness perhaps being the poet's way of reformulating the Mahayana notion that all dharmas are essentially dharma-less! 

A Summer Visit to Azure Dragon Monastery 

to Visit Chan Master Cao

A feeble old man

Walks slowly

Through the Chan temple

Come to pay respects

Yearning to inquire about

The meaning at the heart of meaning

And to reach understanding of

Emptiness that lacks all emptiness

Mountains rivers and sky

All beheld within the eye

The entire world resides

Inside the body of Dharma

There’s nothing strange

Everything melts in scorching heat

And soon it will be reborn

From the union of wind and earth

   

夏日过青龙寺谒操禅师

龙钟一老翁     徐步谒禅宫

欲问义心义     遥知空病空

山河天眼里     世界法身中

莫怪销炎热     能生大地风