寄韬光禅师

Meaning

Bai Juyi sends this poem to the Chan master Taoguang, who lived as a hermit on the mountains near West Lake. Using interlocking couplets in which every line is itself a matched pair, the poet describes the two neighboring temples that share one gate, one water, one cloud, one blossom, one bell — a landscape where all divisions dissolve. The poem closes by imagining the master's hermitage fragrant with falling osmanthus seeds, an image of the Buddhist Pure Land, turning a friendly letter in verse into a quiet meditation on the unity of all things.

一山门作两山门，两寺原从一寺分。东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云。前台花发后台见，上界钟声下界闻。遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] One mountain gate does the work of two: the two temples were once a single monastery. The water of the eastern ravine flows into the western ravine; the clouds of the southern mountain rise over the northern mountain. Flowers blooming at the front terrace can be seen from the back; the bell of the upper realm is heard down in this world. Far away I imagine the place where you, my master, walk in the Way — and the heaven-scented osmanthus seeds fall in drifts. [Structure] The poem is a seven-character regulated verse of four couplets, and its structural marvel is that each of the first six lines is itself a couplet: one gate against two gates, two temples against one temple, east ravine against west ravine, south mountain against north mountain, front terrace against back terrace, upper realm against lower realm. Line after line turns on a pair of opposites, until the reader feels the whole landscape as a single web of correspondences. The final couplet breaks the pattern at last, turning from scene to person — the master walking his path beneath the falling seeds — and the whole poem closes in a drift of fragrance. [Imagery] The images are the mountain monastery at Hangzhou — gates, streams, clouds, flowers, bells — but every image comes in a matched pair, and every pair insists that the two sides are one: one water, one cloud, one sound reaching both realms. The poem's quiet point is Chan: distinctions are conventional, and the master's hermitage is where the drift of osmanthus seeds dissolves the boundary between this world and the Pure Land.

【白话串讲】 白居易写《寄韬光禅师》：“一山门作两山门，两寺原从一寺分”——“东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云”——“前台花发后台见，上界钟声下界闻”——“遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷”——他寄韬光禅师——天香桂子落纷纷。 【意象与手法】 “一山门作两山门，两寺原从一寺分”写两寺一源；“东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云”以对仗写山水之奇；“前台花发后台见，上界钟声下界闻”写花钟相通；结以“遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷”写天香桂子。空灵禅意。 【情感与主旨】 白居易寄韬光禅师之作，以工整的对仗写两寺山水相连的奇景，结以“天香桂子落纷纷”写禅境，是寄赠诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云”写山水之奇；“遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷”写禅境。

Allusions

The poem's one explicit classical resonance is in its closing image. 'Heaven-scented osmanthus seeds' blends two traditions: the moon-palace cassia of myth, whose fragrance is called heavenly, and the famous cassia of the Tianzhu Temple beneath West Lake, whose seeds were said to fall from the moon — Bai Juyi's own line about seeking cassia seeds in the mountain temple by moonlight made the falling seed a signature image of the Hangzhou mountains. In Buddhist usage the falling of the seeds also carries the association of the Pure Land, where flowers rain down as a sign of the awakened mind. Applied to the master Taoguang, the image quietly compares his hermitage to that Pure Land: where he walks in the Way, the air itself drifts with the seeds of enlightenment. 'Upper realm' and 'lower world' are the Buddhist distinction between the heavens above and the world of men — one more of the poem's dissolving pairs, since the bell of the upper realm is heard in the lower world, and the boundary is crossed by sound.

诗中「一山门作两山门两寺原从一寺分」「东涧水流西涧水南山云起北山云」「前台花发后台见上界钟声下界闻」「遥想吾师行道处天香桂子落纷纷」等语，皆含典故故实。「一山门作两山门两寺原从一寺分」写一山门作两山门两寺原从一寺分；「东涧水流西涧水南山云起北山云」写东涧水流西涧水南山云起北山云；「前台花发后台见上界钟声下界闻」写前台花发后台见上界钟声下界闻；「遥想吾师行道处天香桂子落纷纷」用天香桂子之典（天香桂子写佛寺），写遥想吾师行道处天香桂子落纷纷。诗人以天香桂子之典入诗，不着痕迹，而把寄赠禅意之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

This poem has been prized since the Tang as a model of regulated verse written with a Chan flavor. Commentators note its unique structure — couplets nested within couplets — as one of the most ingenious uses of parallelism in the seven-character regulated verse: each line is self-contained, each pair interlocking, so the whole poem feels like a single landscape seen from many angles at once. Later anthologists rank its closing couplet among the finest Chan-inflected endings in Tang poetry: the master is never directly described, yet the drifting osmanthus seeds leave him everywhere and nowhere, exactly the taste of a Zen awakening. In the history of poems sent to monks it stands with the Wangchuan collection for purity of atmosphere, and it is often set against Wang Wei's 'Deer Enclosure' in discussions of how Tang poetry absorbed Buddhist emptiness into landscape. The poem's reputation rests on the paradox at its heart: perfect formal symmetry in the service of a vision in which all distinctions vanish.

这首《寄韬光禅师》，是白居易写寄赠禅意之作，写一山门作两山门、东涧水流西涧水、上界钟声下界闻、天香桂子落纷纷之情，空灵禅意。起「一山门作两山门，两寺原从一寺分」——一山门作两山门，两寺原从一寺分。写一山门作两山门：一山门作两山门、两寺原从一寺分——两山门、一寺分；「东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云」——东涧水流西涧水，南山云起北山云。写东涧水流西涧水：东涧水流西涧水、南山云起北山云——西涧水、北山云；「前台花发后台见，上界钟声下界闻」——前台花发后台见，上界钟声下界闻。写前台花发后台见：前台花发后台见、上界钟声下界闻——后台见、下界闻；结「遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷」——遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷。写天香桂子落纷纷：遥想吾师行道处、天香桂子落纷纷——行道处、落纷纷。这「遥想吾师行道处，天香桂子落纷纷」，是全诗之结：以天香桂子落纷纷写其禅意。全诗空灵禅意，以水写情，正是白居易诗中的名篇。

Prosody

Line by line

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