Contemplative Inquiry

“The good rain knows its season.

When spring arrives it brings life.

It follows the wind secretly into the night

And moistens all things softly, soundlessly.

On the country road the clouds are all black,

On a river boat a single fire bright.

At dawn you see this place red and wet:

The flowers are heavy in Brocade City.”

(Brocade City = Chengdu, in southwestern China)

Michael Wood In The Footsteps of Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet London: Simon and Schuster, 2023

This poem welcomes spring and also celebrates arrival at a place of safety. For a brief period in the early 760s the Chinese poet Du Fu (712 – 770 CE) had a cottage and garden in Chengdu, the Brocade City. It was a time of social breakdown in China and although from the landowning and mandarin class, Du Fu and his family had become refugees in their own country. At times, during their wanderings in the rugged terrain of western China, they were shelterless and close to starvation. Nonetheless, Du Fu retained an underlying resilience. Despite everything his capacity to notice, contemplate, feel, care and write were not compromised. One of his earlier poems, written when trapped in the rebel occupied capital Chang’an (City of Eternal Peace, now Xi’an), begins:

“The state is destroyed, but the country remains.

In the City in spring grass and weeds grow everywhere.

Grieving for the times, even the blossom sheds tears

Hating the separation birds startle the heart.”

As part of his following in Du Fu’s footsteps, Michael Wood visited Chengdu and talked to local people and tourists from other parts of China. Why does Du Fu matter to them now? One older local resident said that he came to the garden – now a well kept heritage site – “at least once a month” to reflect on Du Fu’s poetry. “For a long time we suffered, now we are better off, but today society is very materialistic, and spiritual things are going away. But I feel these things still matter, and here in this place you can go right into his mind: the thoughts and feelings of someone from so long ago. To me, this is a miracle. The garden here is big enough to get lost in, away from the public, especially if you come early in the morning. I sit in a corner and recall him, maybe read out one of his poems out loud, and reflect on it”. He described this as his meditation.

Below is an imaginary portrait of Du Fu by the artist Jiang Zhaohe (1904 -1986). It was done in 1959, during Mao’s Great Famine, described by Michael Wood as “one of China’s most shattering disasters”.