(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Adeline Woon)

It’s intolerable to see
The continual endless suffering
Of all living beings
[When its source is their delusion];
And it’s unbearable to witness
The Sage’s teaching in decline
[Where it once was well established
For over a millennia].

– – –

Outside the long pavilion walkway,
Along both sides of an old path,
There grow the most fragrant wild grasses
Whose vivid green blends into the sky.
[It’s always there to teach
And ready to be realized,
With sound,
With no sound.]

– – –

While the evening wind chases a flute’s song,
The setting sun slowly turns away…
Within the wide expanse of sky,
And all corners of the earth,
Who truly encounters another?
[Without saying a word,
By just ringing a bell,
They naturally
Understand each other.]

Introduction

A portrait of Master Hongyi

The history of Buddhism is the history of virtuous individuals who have connected with and explored the Three Jewels – the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. They have come from all walks of life; from commoners to royalty, artists to scientists, and nameless wanderers to renowned achievers.

Despite their differences, they are bound by the ancient profound wisdom of the Buddha and the noble character of Dharma.

And while many have developed an appreciation for the Three Jewels, rarer still are those who have taken the selfless step of completely renouncing secular life and joining the Sangha order, spending their lives achieving the Truth. One such person was Master Hongyi.

Born into a wealthy and illustrious family, Master Hongyi made a name for himself as an especially gifted artist. At the peak of his artistic and personal life, he renounced the material world and embraced the robes of an ordained Buddhist monk.

Master Hongyi dedicated the rest of his life to Buddhist practice and became one of the most prominent monks of 20^th Century China.

The well-known adherent of the Vinaya path of Chinese Buddhism tradition, Master Hongyi

He was a well-known adherent of the Vinaya path of Chinese Buddhism tradition, a talented multi-disciplinary artist and a charismatic teacher. Although he was also called Wentao (文涛), Guanghou (广侯) and Shutong (叔同), Hongyi (弘一) is the name by which he is most commonly known.

Master Hongyi was a master of painting, calligraphy, music, drama, song writing, acting, poetry and seal-carving. His early life, when he was known as Li Shutong, coincided with what is often referred to as China’s ‘transitional period’ between the 1890s to 1911, which saw the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty.

This ‘transitional period’ was also marked by the rise to prominence of reformers who emphasised the social and political relevance of culture. Their goal was to reform the nation through the expression of Chinese culture through reimagined lens.

Life as Li Shutong, Master of Arts

Li Shutong in his youth. After becoming ordained as a monk, he took the name Hongyi.

Master Hongyi (弘一大师, October 23, 1880 – October 13, 1942) was born Li Shutong (李叔同) to wealthy parents in the northern commercial city of Tianjin. The well-educated family was originally from Hongdong County, Shanxi and had migrated to Tianjin during the Ming Dynasty.

Li Shutong’s grandfather was a wealthy banker and salt merchant while his father, Li Shizhen (李世珍), was a scholar and devoted reader of Chan Buddhism and the works of Ming Neo-Confucian thinker, Wang Yangming (1472-1529).

His mother had a much simpler upbringing – she was a farmer’s daughter from Pinghu in Zhejiang Province. She was his father’s fourth wife in the multi-courtyard household, and was only 20 when he was born; his father was 68.

Master Hongyi’s father passed away when he was just four. Living under her eldest son’s roof, his mother struggled to maintain her position while navigating the complicated dynamics of the household. Li Shutong, however, was fortunate that two of his elder half-brothers took him under their wing in his early years. He was able to receive a good education and a solid grounding in the Confucian classics.

The young Li Shutong mastered the art of calligraphy and after his ordination as Master Hongyi, he continued to engage in this artistic tradition. This calligraphy, produced during the period of his life when he was known as Master Hongyi, reads from right to left “Zijing Qixin” (自净其意). It means “to cleanse one’s mind” and is an extract from a famous verse.

Li Shutong exhibited precocious intelligence and talent, and became exceptionally good at calligraphy, seal-carving and poetry. He also displayed an early preoccupation with religion, memorising ritual texts recited by Buddhist monks at family memorial services.

“When I was only five years old,” he wrote in an essay published in 1937, “I often met monks and many of them performed religious services at our home. By the time I was 12 or 13, I could already recite rituals of exorcism.”

Although there were clear signs that Li Shutong was inclined towards study and contemplating Buddhist philosophy before he was ordained, he was by no means a hermit or a recluse. In 1897, when he was only 17, he was wedded to a girl older than him by two years in a marriage arranged by his mother.

This rare picture was taken in 1905. Li Shutong (left) is seen here playing chess with his elder brother (right) at their Tianjin home before he left to Japan to further his studies.

It was a loveless marriage that Li Shutong did not enjoy. The couple had three sons together, the eldest of whom passed away at a young age.

Li Shutong took part in various political reform movements during his teenage years, and the volatility of the political environment compelled him to move in 1898 to the relative safety of Shanghai with his family.

In 1901, he enrolled at Nanyang Public School, which would later be known as Jiaotong University. Li had joined the Union of Shanghai Calligraphers and Painters the year before, and it served to showcase his prodigious talents in calligraphy, literature and painting. His reputation spread not only for his creative accomplishments but also for a love affair with a famous Shanghai beauty Xie Qiuyun (谢秋云), to whom he wrote this poem:

Recalling my frivolous past,
I regret indulging myself in sensual pleasure…

Li Shutong during his time in Japan, when he studied at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts.

Li Shutong used many pen names throughout his life, choosing a new one whenever a particularly momentous event occurred. When his mother passed away in 1905, Li Shutong changed his name to Li Ao (“Li who mourns for his mother”) and left for Japan, where he was already very well-known.

At the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in Ueno Park, Li studied Western oil painting under a leading Japanese oil painter, Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924). He also studied piano and composition, and composed many songs using the Western harmonic-melodic models.

In 1906, he took on the role of editor at Little Music magazine. In the magazine’s preface written January 3, 1906, Li Shutong produced an intense effect of being downhearted and trapped while contemplating the fate of the nation in the final paragraph:

An anxious moon and a desolate wind accompany the uneven sounds of a reed pipe. China’s uncertain future hangs in the balance. In the corner of a tavern I sit alone, the evenings pass by like years. I pick up my pen but can’t write a word, reduced as I am to weeping tears.

Li Shutong’s charcoal drawing titled ‘Maiden’

Despite his penchant for drawing, painting and music, Master Hongyi attracted the most attention for his works in the field of drama.

He was a skilled amateur performer of Chinese opera. In 1906, he formed the Spring Willow Society with a number of overseas Chinese theatre enthusiasts in Tokyo and often played the female lead in a drama troupe co-founded with the overseas Chinese student community.

The following year, the Society performed a number of plays, including Black Slaves Cry to Heaven, based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novels, as well as La Dame aux camélias and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, translated by Lin Shu. These plays took the Tokyo drama world by storm and their performances were a roaring success acclaimed by both Chinese and Japanese critics.

A group picture of the Spring Willow Society members

Li Shutong left the Spring Willow Society in the winter of 1908 to focus on painting and music. He also met his lover, Yukiko, who bore him a son and a daughter. In March 1910, he graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and returned to Tianjin with their children. He took up a position as a teacher of drawing at the Zhili Normal Technical Institute in Tianjin.

Li settled into long-term employment in 1912 at the Hangzhou Zhejiang Province First Normal College as a music and art teacher. The college was relatively new and at the forefront of China’s emerging education reformation. Li Shutong also taught art history while continuing with his calligraphy, music composition, painting, seal-carving, poetry and songwriting.

“A Half-naked Woman” by Li Shutong, collected by CAFA Art Museum, China

The 1912 stock market collapse exacted a severe toll on the Li family fortune; Li Shutong and his two half-brothers found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy. He moved back to Shanghai in the spring and taught music at East Shanghai Girls’ School. He also became actively involved in several newly-formed literary societies in the early days of the new Chinese republic.

Master Hongyi with his students, Liu Zhi Ping (left) and Feng Zikai (right), before entering into a retreat in 1918.

Li Shutong was appointed to Tianjin’s Bei-yang Advanced Industry School and took various art-related jobs to support his growing family. As one of the leading figures who introduced modern – in this case, ‘Western’ – elements into the Chinese arts scene, Li Shutong was actively engaged with leading arts figures in Shanghai’s booming creative circles.

He was the first Chinese art educator to introduce nude models in his painting classes, as well as the first teacher who taught Western music in China. Some students whom he personally groomed, such as contemporary Chinese artist, educator and musician Feng Zikai (丰子恺), and Singaporean artist Chen Wenxi (陳文希), went on to become accomplished artists in their own right.

Ordination

Li Shutong holding his 21-day fasting diary

It was during this period that Li Shutong came into more meaningful contact with Buddhism. In 1916, he undertook a 21-day fast at a temple in Hangzhou to experience for himself aspects of the spiritual path. This would lead to his embrace of the ordained life not very long after.

A mid-life transition to monkhood was a very unusual thing in early 20^th Century China, particularly for an upper class, highly educated and professionally successful person like Li Shutong. Though he had shown a penchant for both solitude and abruptness, these were traits associated with his artistic pursuits rather than his social interactions.

Li Shutong’s decision to renounce secular life was relatively sudden; most spend years thinking about the commitment and engage in it one step at a time. He instead took refuge in the Three Jewels in 1917 and was ordained a Buddhist monk less than two years after his first encounter with monastic life.

Those two intervening years were the fundamental pivot point of his life. They were the transition from secular life to a spiritual one, dedicated to practising and propagating the Buddha’s teachings, particularly those on code of conduct (Vinaya).

There is a couplet that reflects his state of mind after becoming a monk:

Truth and error in history are only a fleeting dream,
A word of scripture redeems the soul.

In 1918, he was just 38 and a well-known figure on the arts scene. After becoming a monk, Li became known as Master Hongyi and practised only calligraphy. He developed a simple and unadorned, yet unique style that remains widely treasured today.

Li Shutong received his ordination vows at Hangzhou’s well-known Lingyin Monastery (灵隐寺). Here is a tale of Li Shutong’s transition.

In 1916 he was feeling very uncomfortable with himself, such that he sought relief. To address this ailment of shenjing shuairuo (神經衰弱), which in Europe and the United States was called “neurasthenia” and described there as a modern disease of intellectual workers overcome by the tensions of the new age, Li Shutong had read in a Japanese magazine of a method of self-cure involving a graduated diet during a twenty-one day period of seclusion at the coldest period of the year. During the winter break from his job as music and art instructor at the Zhejiang Province First Normal College in Hangzhou, Li Shutong made arrangements through friends and took quiet lodging at a local Buddhist monastery beside West Lake, the Dinghuisi (定慧寺), located at Hupao (虎跑). This monastery is sometimes known as Hupaosi.

Arriving on December 14, 1916, he was given a guest room in the abbot’s building. He later described this period as the first opportunity he had to observe Buddhist monks within their own habitat. Earlier he had come into contact with troupes of monks hired to carry out memorial and consecration rites, who had come to his family compound in Tianjin, beginning with the rites that followed the death of his father. As he notes:

“Although from the age of five sui onward I often met monks, on those occasions I often saw monks who came to our home to chant scriptures and carry out worship and repentance rites. I even studied the fang yankou (放焰口) at age twelve or thirteen. But I never lived together with “having the Way” monks, and I didn’t know what it was like inside a monastery, nor what monks’ lives were like. When I went to Hupao Monastery, I saw their sort of lives. Not only was I very glad, but moreover I came to admire their way of life.”

When Li Shutong was around eight, one of the female relatives in his household began studying with a learned monk in Tianjin, and she began to chant some of the basic prayers, such as the Dabei zhou (大悲咒, Great Compassion Incantation). Li Shutong also would chant with her and soon memorized a number of these foundational works. Although they were forgotten later on, perhaps these early practices as a child formed a kind of hidden basis for a later affinity with Buddhist monastic life.

As an adult, he also had enjoyed casual strolls through accessible monasteries near his Hangzhou lodgings. But this experience at Hupao was different. He had the opportunity to observe on a daily basis a monk— not the abbot or other senior figure, just an ordinary monk in the monastery— whom he found admirable, who seemed to reflect in his countenance a kind of happiness that had entirely eluded the famous artist.

According to the diary that Li Shutong kept while in residence at Hupao (a peculiarly obsessive and self-regarding document that in some ways is vivid witness to his self-diagnosis), for these three weeks he continued some usual practices, mainly reading and calligraphic work. But his interest had been piqued, and he engaged this monk— who lived on the upper floor of the building where Li Shutong was quartered— in conversation, after which the monk introduced him to some Buddhist texts. The experience moved him in unforeseen ways. As he later wrote:

“Even though I only lived within the monastery precincts for a bit more than a half- month, my heart was utterly joyful. And I enjoyed eating their vegetarian food. After I returned to school, I asked the workers to prepare dishes in that style for me to eat. It can be said that the near cause for my becoming a monk was this time in which I went to Hupao to fast. By the second half of Minguo 6 [1917], I had decided to eat [only] vegetarian food. Then during that winter I sought out many scriptures, such as the “Chapter on Puxian’s Acts and Vows” [from the Huayanjing], the Lengyanjing, the Treatise on Arising Trust in Mahāyāna – many Buddhist scriptures – and in my room I also gathered together images of Buddhist figures such as the bodhisattvas Dizang and Guanshiyin, and I burned incense before them every day.”

During this same period, he regularly visited a friend, the somewhat reclusive and brilliantly learned philosopher Ma Yifu 馬一浮 (1883-1967), for instruction and conversation on Buddhist views. Li Shutong’s student at the time, the later very famous artist and essayist Feng Zikai 豐子愷 (1898-1975), sometimes accompanied his teacher to Ma Yifu’s house and listened quietly; he reports that the conversation was far over his head.

Step by step, Li Shutong’s mind turned toward the notion of a Buddhist inflected life. Early in 1918, roughly a year after the fast at Hupao, he made the ritual commitment to enter the Buddhist community as a layperson by taking refuge in the Three Jewels (the sanbao guiyi 三寶皈依 rite). This ceremony was presided over by a senior monk, the teacher of the monk whom he so admired at Hupao. He began gravitating more and more toward Buddhist life, spending school holidays in the Hupao monastery rather than visiting family or going on outings. There was something about it that suited him. As he tried on the clothes and customs of this world, they began to feel comfortable.

Two years after the fast, he left his teaching position at the end of the academic year, moved into the monastery at Hupao, and then “left home” (chujia 出家), which is the initial stage in becoming a monastic in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. While some novices take a year or so to get accustomed to monastic life and memorize the basic daily liturgies before committing to receive the full monastic precepts (“ordination”), Li Shutong immediately sought out the opportunity to make this commitment. Only a month after joining the Order, he was able to go through the preparatory training and then the full ordination rites at the largest monastery in Hangzhou, the Lingyinsi. Thereafter, he was known by the monastic names Yanyin (演音) and Hongyi (弘一).

(Source: Zhe, J., Goossaert, V., & Ownby, D. (2017). Making Saints in Modern China. New York (N.Y.): Oxford University press.)

Life as Master Hongyi, Patriarch of the Vinaya School of Chinese Buddhism

For Master Hongyi, the three milestones that mark his passage from ordination as a novice monk to full ordination as a bhikshu took place in fairly close succession.

The adoption of a vegetarian diet was the first step in changing his daily activities to align with Buddhist teachings. Master Hongyi noted that it was the vital turning point to establishing a new life as an ordained monk.

He let go of his lay identity and success to lead a life guided by the 250 monastic precepts of behaviour. These range from serious transgressions such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and lying about one’s attainments, etc., to auxiliary transgressions such as those covering acts like walking, sitting and even one’s eating posture.

In addition, Master Hongyi also took the Bodhisattva Precepts which include fundamental Mahayana vows to seek liberation in order to aid all sentient beings. Precepts and vows are similar but not identical:

• Precepts (rules): for the most part, to restrain and to control one’s speech and behaviour
• Vows: to direct one’s inner life and to establish aspirations that give defined meaning to one’s actions

Precepts and vows are central to a Buddhist life. In many of Master Hongyi’s writings, one can see very clearly how these two aspects became the main focus of his life after he embraced the path to Enlightenment.

Master Hongyi studied and practised the Vinaya all his ordained life. His interest was not limited to clarifying the Vinaya but extended to restoring its central daily practices, such as the taking of two meals before noon, which had largely fallen out of practice in China at the time.

This was a significant departure from the life Master Hongyi had led up to that point, a life which was characterised by hedonism and a lack of restraint. The calligraphic works he created during his ordained life reflect his departure from that existence, to his concerns with vows made by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to aid all sentient beings.

Significant Events in Master Hongyi’s Ordained Life

Love Is Compassion

Stage photo from Spring Willow Society

Both Master Hongyi’s wives were baffled with his decision and understandably reluctant to let him go. His Japanese wife was especially confused because he had once told her she was the ‘search of his life’ and that they were destined to be together.

An arrangement was made for them to meet and she asked him, “What is love?”

To her, the nature of love was to hold her beloved to her heart. It was difficult to let him go as she really loved him. However, Master Hongyi’s perspective of love had grown beyond that basic manifestation of love.

His answer was short and simple, yet profound: “Love is compassion.”

According to Buddhist teachings, true love is the ever-open hand that lets go of attachment and traditional perspectives of the beloved, and instead gives freely and equally to all.

An Advocate of Compassion

An illustration from the Pictorial Series on Protection of Life

Master Hongyi authored the famous Poem & Pictorial Series on Protection of Life (《护生画集》) that expressed his mindful practice of the precepts and his message of compassion in every facet of life.

His exhortations were not just for others; Master Hongyi, the Maverick Monk, practised what he preached, inspecting his seat or bed closely before sitting or lying down, lest he harmed the smallest insect.

He would chant Amituofo (Amitabha Buddha) to bless any bug he found before releasing it. This was his way of advocating the importance of valuing the sanctity of life, no matter the size of the earthly vessel within which it was contained.

Attitude Towards Basic Needs

Master Hongyi had a remarkable attitude towards food, as captured in this commonly recounted tale:

One day Xia Mianzun, a well-known educator of that time, saw the venerable monk eating a simple dinner of a single dish of pickled vegetables. Feeling sorry, Xia Mianzun asked, “Don’t you think that the pickled vegetables are too salty?” Venerable Hongyi replied, “A salty taste has its own appeal.”

After dinner, the monk poured himself a glass of water. “Why not drink a cup of tea?” Xia asked, “Water is so bland.” Smiling, Master Hongyi replied, “Blandness has its own taste, too.”

The way the Master viewed food revealed not only that he had truly integrated Dharma into his daily life, but also how joyful a life of Chan can be.

Guo Beiping’s oil painting of Master Hongyi

He was also known for his great frugality. For example, he would repair and keep using ragged robes and shoes, worn towels, old bedding and other personal items instead of replacing them with new ones. He would politely refuse any offer of new or better replacements simply because he was truly content with the little he had, not out of pride or stubbornness.

As an ordained monk, he saw no need to exchange what he felt was adequate with something that could be used to benefit others.

Cherish Our Blessings

Master Yinguang

Once, Master Hongyi stayed with Master Yinguang (印光大师), the 13th patriarch of the Pureland School of Chinese Buddhism, for seven days and spent time observing his practice of Dharma in everyday life.

When they were having a meal together, Master Hongyi emulated Master Yinguang’s practice of adding water to the food scraps in his bowl at the end of a meal and drinking the food ‘juice’. Master Yinguang responded by saying, “Yao xi fu ah!” (We must cherish our blessings!)

In the Mahayana teachings, it is said that gratitude for what we have, however small, is one of the fundamentals that gear us towards higher spiritual attainments, compassion, bodhi mind and wisdom.

A simple act like washing down one’s food can therefore become a Dharma practice that can be aligned with the path to Enlightenment.

Virtue of Humility

As Li Shutong, he was arrogant and proud of his background and achievements but reborn as Master Hongyi, he would humbly ask student monks for advice to improve his teaching of Dharma. Instead of rationalising his apparent faults, Master Hongyi would ask for his students’ feedback, humbly and without defending himself when a student monk was displeased with him due to a misunderstanding.

This was contrary to the usual expectations that a master is always perfect and flawless, and any apparent faults they may have must be rationalised without any doubt.

Once, Master Hongyi requested to be Master Yinguang’s disciple. Upon receiving the request, the latter humbly declined and thought it was more appropriate that they become Dharma co-practitioners and learn from each other’s virtues, so as to make up for each other’s faults.

Master Yinguang taught,

Constantly maintain a humble and repentful heart; even if one has upheld true cultivation, one should still feel one’s practice is shallow and never boast. One should mind one’s own business and not the business of others. Only look after the good examples of others in-stead of bad ones. One should see oneself as mundane and everyone else as Bodhisattvas. If one can cultivate according to these teachings, one is sure to reach the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss [Amituofo’s Pure Land]…

…Whether one is a layperson or has left the home-life, one should respect elders and be harmonious to those surrounding him. One should endure what others cannot, and practice what others cannot achieve. One should take others’ difficulties unto oneself and help them succeed in their undertakings.

While sitting quietly, one should often reflect upon one’s own faults, and when chatting with friends, one should not discuss the rights and wrongs of others.

In every action one makes, whether dressing or eating, from dawn to dusk and dusk till dawn, one should not cease to recite the Buddha’s name. Aside from Buddha recitation, whether reciting quietly or silently, one should not give rise to other improper thoughts. If wandering thoughts appear, one should immediately dismiss them.

(Source: “印光大師留世之作.” Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. STUST. Accessed May 26, 2020. http://faculty.stust.edu.tw/~tang/Mahayana/teacher/master.htm.)

Later, Master Yinguang was revealed to be a manifestation of the Mahastamaprapta Bodhisattva (Dashizhi Pusa), to whom Master Hongyi was particularly attracted. This made such an important lesson of humility even more significant!

Song of the Triple Gem: A Collaboration

Master Hongyi (left) and Master Taixu (right) with whom he collaborated for the song “San Bao Ge” (Song of the Triple Gem).

Master Hongyi composed the music for the song San Bao Ge (《三宝歌》, Song of the Triple Gem) and had Master Taixu compose the words for it. The Chinese Buddhist community has since adopted it as an anthem. Master Taixu, being a great Buddhist education reformer, used the lyrics of this song to remind fellow Buddhist practitioners that ‘Buddhism is for the world’.

Master Hongyi’s encounters with the great masters of his time clearly show that the interest and focus of his ordained life never deviated from propagating Buddhism and preserving the Buddhadharma for the generations to come.

San Bao Ge (《三宝歌》, Song of the Triple Gem)

《三宝歌》

人天长夜 宇宙黮黯 谁启以光明
三界火宅 众苦煎迫 谁济以安宁
大悲大智大雄力 南无佛陀耶
昭朗万有 衽席群生 功德莫能名
今乃知 唯此是 真正皈依处
尽形寿 献身命 信受勤奉行

二谛总持 三学增上 恢恢法界身
净德既圆 染患斯寂 荡荡涅槃城
众缘性空唯识现 南无达摩耶
理无不彰 蔽无不解 焕乎其大明
今乃知 唯此是 真正皈依处
尽形寿 献身命 信受勤奉行

依净律仪 成妙和合 灵山遗芳形
修行证果 弘法利世 焰续佛灯明
三乘圣贤何济济 南无僧伽耶
统理大众 一切无碍 住持正法城
今乃知 唯此是 真正皈依处
尽形寿 献身命 信受勤奉行

English translation

Song of The Three Jewels

Night is endless, man’s world is dark, who lead us to the light
Who will free all living creatures from the scorching fire
Mercy wisdom and Great Might, Namo Buddhaya
You are lighting up my hearts and warming my body
Follow you, then I know, it is just the time
From now on, believe in you, offer all my life

Here we have “two truths” and “three studies” farming grand Dharma
Bondless pious deed help me enter land of Nirvana
Cause and impermanence decide all, Namo Dharmaya
You can uncover all the truths and as sun shining bright
Follow you, then I know, it is just the time
From now on, believe in you, offer all my life

Obey discipline, show the kindness, paragons from Linshan
Spiritual progress does good to the world
Buddha lamps never die
Men of virtue so many, Namo Sanghaya
You can command the people to guard the sublime
Follow you, then I know, it is just the time
From now on, believe in you, offer all my life

The End of His Life

By early 1942, austerities and fasts began to take their toll on Master Hongyi’s health and by mid-May, his health was deteriorating rapidly.

Three days before he passed away at Busi Temple in Quanzhou, Fujian Province on October 13, 1942, Master Hongyi wrote his last brushstrokes of calligraphy: “Sorrow and Joy Comingle”, “Worldly Sorrows and Joy Are Intertwined”, or “Sorrow or Joy Are Inextricably Bound to Each Other” (《悲欣交集》, Beixin jiaoji).

His state of mind was revealed through the strokes of these Chinese characters. The word “sorrow” (悲) closely resembled his facial expression and his life. Despite Master Hongyi’s great accomplishments in many fields of the arts, he was alone.

He believed that there were three stages in human life: material, intellectual and spiritual. Intellectual life is the life of ordinary intellectuals. Spiritual life refers to the religious realm.

Material, intellectual, spiritual; beauty, profundity, deity. These are largely associated with abstinence, composure and wisdom in Buddhism.

Abstinence refers to the abandonment of the materialistic life. Composure stands for deep meditation, tranquil and remote, which finally leads to the attainment of wisdom. The image of Venerable Hongyi being sorrowful and joyful (欣) represented the interplay between the various aspects.

The paranirvana of Master Hongyi

Beyond Master Hongyi’s transformation that shocked his family and peers, it is indeed incredible that he is now celebrated as much for his accomplishments as a monk as he was for his contributions to the artistic and cultural world.

By the last stage of his life, not only were his teachings remarkably clear and powerful, but his fluent calligraphy had been pared down to a distinctive style that remains the graphic look of Chinese Buddhism for many. It embodies a sense of purity and calmness associated in China with Buddhist cultivation.

These qualities were developed, not descriptors of this great monk in the years before he became a monk.

Poetry and Legacy

Li Shutong also wrote the famous poem Farewell (《送别》, Song Bie) that was later made into the widely sung The Farewell Song (《送别歌》, Song Bie Ge).

《送别歌》

长亭外 古道边 芳草碧连天
晚风拂柳笛声残 夕阳山外山

天之涯 地之角 知交半零落
一觚浊酒尽余欢 今宵別梦寒

English translation

The Farewell Song

Outside the long pavilion, along the ancient route, fragrant green grass joins the sky,
The evening wind caressing willow trees, the sound of the flute piercing the heart, sunset over mountains beyond mountains.

At the brink of the sky, at the corners of the earth, my familiar friends wander in loneliness and far from home,
One more ladle of wine to conclude the little happiness that remains; don’t have any sad dreams tonight.

He arranged the lyrics to the melody of the mid-19^th Century song Dreaming of Home and Mother by American composer John P. Ordway. When Ordway’s work was introduced into Japan, musician Kyuukei Inudou (犬童球渓) translated it, with a few modifications, into the Japanese version titled Loneliness on a Journey (《旅愁》) that was published in 1904. Li Shutong was introduced to this melody when he was studying in Japan between 1905 and 1910. He was moved by its melody and wrote Farewell in 1915 based on Ordway’s original work when he returned to China.

Later, the Beijing-based progressive-metal rock band, The Tang Dynasty, recorded a rock-version of The Farewell Song on their second album, Epic.

Song Bie, performed by the Tang Dynasty

 
A special 130^th anniversary celebration of Master Hongyi, showcasing his calligraphy and painting works, was held in 2010 in Shanghai. It was sponsored in part by the Pinghu Municipal Government and attended by a granddaughter of Hongyi.

Important Works

• Collections
• Happy Stones
• Li Shutong’s Seals

Articles

• How to Paint (《圖畫修得法》)
• An Introduction to Watercolours (《水彩畫法說略》)

Lyrics

• The Farewell Song (《送别歌》)

Music

• Childhood Memories
• Song of Three Jewels (《三宝歌》), Master Taixu lyrics

 
Sources:

• http://www.pacificbuddha.org/chinese-poetry
• http://www.khenposodargye.org/2016/03/chapter-seven-pravrajya-ordination-and-practice/
• https://moonpointer.com/new/2009/09/a-full-bright-moon-radiant-with-compassion/
• http://animperfectpen.blogspot.my/2009/02/li-shutong-and-writing-lifes-stories.html
• The Poetry of Sculpture, Weishan Wu, World Scientific, 2008
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbie_(song)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Yi
• http://faculty.stust.edu.tw/~tang/Mahayana/teacher/master.htm
• Making Saints in Modern China, edited by David Ownby, Vincent Gossaert, Ji Zhe

For more interesting information:

• Empty Cloud
• The Six Patriarchs of Chan Buddhism
• Bodhidharma – the founder of Gongfu
• Ji Gong – The Crazy Monk of China
• Du Fu – a Poet Savant
• Amazing Xuanzang and His Journey to the West
• Kumarajiva – the Great Translator from Kucha
• Emperor Kangxi | 康熙皇帝
• Professor Garma C.C. Chang – The Illustrious Pioneer
• Bill Porter (Red Pine): The Translator of Chinese Poems and Promoter of Zen Buddhism

Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:

If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team