199

by tendo zenji

199

What do worldly people grieve?
Pain and pleasure entwine without end,
birth and death come and go for many eons.
East, west, south, and north–whose house is it?
Zhang, Wang, Li and Zhao are temporary names.
The six paths and the river of hell are crooked as flax–
because the hosts within fail to cut them off,
in the end, they run stray and invite transmigration.

-Han Shan.
Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi & Peter Levitt in The Complete Cold Mountain