Written just after the Cloud Gate incident
An evil wind blows me to Wu Chang,
my presence here has caused disaster.
For three months, at Sung Fat Monastery,
this sick and ageing body has attracted trouble,
shame and fear for everyone.
Once there was a decapitated general
calling aloud for his head;
“How many heads have you cut off?”
they asked him, at once he was enlightened.
Today, I too lament,
defeated, tortured, I recall unnumbered heads
in other lifetimes I cut off.
Vast is time and I am reconciled.
No more desire for eminence,
simply the wish to find the Buddha,
along with other people.
………
Translation John Crook & Yu Nan.
