Night

The night is cool: a flute plays, a moon over a thousand mountains; the road is dark, travelers are bewildered like a hundred kinds of flowers. The chess game ends, unnoticed that the world has changed hands; the wine is finished, and the guest can only, helpless, think of home.

Night always makes me more real, brings me closer to my own essence.

When everyone and everything around me is still, my thoughts begin to grow still as well.

Best of all would be the ticking of an old-fashioned clock — what a luxury that would be. In long city life, I have learned to hallucinate the dripping of the air conditioner, the dripping of the faucet, even the roar of the refrigerator’s cooling, into that eternal tick~ tick~ tick.

You are asleep; I am awake.

Only at such times can I truly find the answers — the answers to all the questions you asked me.

Only at such times can I savor it slowly — your tenderness toward me, your silence toward me.

The true color of night is not darkness, but empty clarity.

Oars of cassia, sweeps of orchid — we strike the clear emptiness and row up against the flowing light.

I slide open the window: the scent of shower gel, the stillness of the road, the roar of motor vehicles, all arriving mixed with a slightly cool wind.

The flavor of summer is not, in fact, the scorching sun, but stillness.

The mind’s mirror bright, its long reflection shining; in quiet cultivation, abandon clamor and noise.

I call you softly, and then hear a reply low as a mosquito’s hum.

And my heart is utterly at ease.

You are asleep, and now I am going to sleep too.

There is solemn tragedy, and there is release.

Together with you, I sink into deep sleep.