In Tranquility/ In Ding 定中

By Yuan Xi from White Cloud Poetry Society | Version A | Translated by Jennifer Zeng and Damian Robin

The Way of Heaven narrows, squeezing, distant, upward

     complexly to an up high, jade-made palace.

I meditate, legs tight on a whitened mountain bollard,

     long, through long night’s deep-stretched, empty solace. 

Even mountain birds scatter before the palace.

    The courtyard desolate. The whole world, dust.

One simple, single thought. Silence. Extinction. No place.

   Look backward, only a speck of dust.

Version B | Translated by Jennifer Zeng and Gerard Traub

How high the great Tao is

Spiralling upward, stretching beyond the sky

With principles so profound

As difficult to reach as the jade mansion in paradise. 

I sit and meditate upon white stone

Deeply into the night

The startled birds in the mountains have all flown away

The courtyard empty.

All my thoughts extinguished

Here looking back

The universe now tiny as dust.

文：白雲詩社 元曦 | 英文翻譯：曾錚

天道何盤盤  機深玉宇寒

趺坐白石上  坐久夜正闌 

山鳥驚飛去  庭空更蕭然 

一念如寂滅  回看小塵寰