Imagining Yellow Dragon Cave
Imagining Yellow Dragon Cave by Li Shuiyun For a very long time, Yellow Dragon Cave had truly become utterly uninteresting to me. Of course, this is not because Yellow Dragon Cave is not beautiful, nor because I have no feeling for beautiful scenery, but because I am already extremely, extremely familiar with that blessed land, which gives rise from the bottom of my heart to a kind of dullness and weariness as if the tentacles of visual perception have been worn down—what is called no scenery in a familiar place. As with the frequency of visiting other scenic spots, Yellow Dragon Cave I...
Imagining Yellow Dragon Cave
By Li Shuiyun
For a long time, Yellow Dragon Cave had truly lost its charm for me.
Of course, this was not because Yellow Dragon Cave is not beautiful, nor because I am insensitive to beautiful scenery, but because I had become so very, very familiar with that blessed land that a kind of dullness and weariness grew from the bottom of my heart, as if the antennae of my vision had been worn down——as the saying goes, there is no scenery in familiar places.
Just like the frequency of visiting other attractions, I had probably been to Yellow Dragon Cave dozens of times. During this period, I could no longer remember how many repeated roads I had walked, how many repeated words I had spoken, and those legends that sounded a bit like lies, the tired, stiff smiles on faces…… In the end, I simply let my friends go in by themselves while I waited outside, partly to be lazy, and partly to save some energy for climbing the mountain.
At first, I could still wander around outside Yellow Dragon Cave with great interest, watching the crowds of visitors at the cave entrance, the verdant green fields outside, and the Suoxi Stream on the side of the cave dwelling, like a singer who never tires, whose sound alone made one's mood as high and clear as the sky. But after a long time, I found that my old problem had recurred——that sense of bored weariness rose again from my heart, and so I finally began to slowly understand what a certain sociologist said: humans are a typical kind of creature that loves the new and loathes the old.
So later I simply did not even get out of the car, and just sat in the car waiting.
I do not know whether other people's thoughts, when they are waiting or silent, can also settle down together with their bodies. I only know that for me, when I appear very quiet, that is precisely when my thoughts are especially active, my imagination is most colorful and boundless, and flies higher and farther. This enables me, during brief moments of rest on business trips or journeys, to replay everything I have experienced and felt in my mind like a film, letting that rich imagination make it all fuller and more vivid once again, and also letting the soul receive infinite nourishment in this process of recollection and imaginative construction. Therefore, when I truly settled down and sat in the car, I clearly sensed that my soul, riding the wings of imagination, entered together with those travel companions through that mysterious portal leading straight to the depths of the earth.
Every time I enter Yellow Dragon Cave, I pass through the Gate of Happiness without hesitation, because I feel that brief happiness is far more important than lonely longevity. The meaning of life requires not only a lifelong expectation for some dream, but also the ability to possess the happiness and joy one wants within a limited process.
Not long after passing through the Gate of Happiness, one must take a boat across that dark underground river. The first time I saw that river, the shock inside me could not be described in words. Besides astonishment, there was also some confusion, some lack of understanding, but the loud shouting and clamor of the fellow boat passengers quickly covered and diluted my trance and reverie. But when I let my heart, like a quietly gliding bird, lightly fly over the river's surface, I clearly felt that some voice deep in my heart was quietly conversing with this lonely river, and the faint ripples stirred by that conversation have still not dispersed from the bottom of my heart to this day. I have always felt that this river is like a silent sage, a witness to history and life. It is a ferry crossing on the river of time; it ferries all grudges and passions across, while it itself remains beyond time, calculating the source of life stroke by stroke.
There is a Buddhist verse that says: the old monk enters the mountain the first time, and sees the mountain as a mountain; the second time he enters the mountain, he sees the mountain not as a mountain; when he enters the mountain a third time, he sees the mountain still as a mountain. This Buddhist verse speaks of the different realms in the process of a person's lifelong cultivation. In fact, it is not only seeing mountains; seeing all things, including seeing people, involves such a process. When people first see Yellow Dragon Cave, they cannot help but exclaim——what a magical cave dwelling! The second time they look, what their hearts and eyes see are those miraculous works of divine craftsmanship, and so they sigh inwardly again——worthy of being an artistic palace! After visiting many times, I think people should calm down from that excitement of exclamation and praise, let the soul fly freely, and use the eyes of feeling and imagination to touch the stalactites and stalagmites standing quietly everywhere, because only in this way can people truly appreciate where the charm of Yellow Dragon Cave lies.
——Those stalagmites, stone pillars, and stalactites, the small ones like the mysterious fingers of some deity, repeatedly calculating the rounded details of the transformations of life and death; while the tall silver-gray ones are like cedars in winter, and the sturdy ones beneath the trees resemble some charmingly naive animals.
——That heavenly immortal water falling from the sky and flowing endlessly, I can understand by its name as pool water leaking down from a heavenly pool, or as tears shed by some fairy when she was secretly grieving over longing for the mortal world, and those tiny, fragmented sounds seem to me even more like someone's song: the person has gone far away, yet the clear notes linger faintly……
——Before the Echo Wall, with one clear chant, what I hear is the howl of time. That howl penetrates a thousand layers of barriers, echoing the repeated fissions of the universe into intermittent broken bells and the clanging light of stars, hanging upside down between the instant and eternity, questioning all souls and gazes. Even the Shenzhou I and II rockets, ready to burst forth and fly, are locked in the cave by the spell of this howl and light; for tens of thousands of years the spell still cannot be released.
——That vast expanse of rice fields, scattered with golden grains, yet no farmer comes to harvest them.
——In the Golden Flower Pool and Silver Flower Pool, flowers already sway, filling the pools with fragrance, yet no flower-planting maiden comes to pick them, letting those flowers bloom in vain for a thousand years, and then ten thousand more.
——At the winding paths and corridors, where stone bridges arch high, for several centuries the Little Dragon Maiden has still not found the lover who came to keep the appointment……
Anyone who has been to Yellow Dragon Cave knows that there is a cave within the cave: the “Dragon Palace.” Since it is called the Dragon Palace, the scenery inside is of course extraordinary, but perhaps because my mood was poor or my feelings were numb, I had no particular impression when I first entered. Looking around, it seemed to be nothing more than those stalactites, stone pillars, stalagmites, and the like. However I looked, they were still stones, only a bit more moist, cool, and smooth than the stones outside the cave. But when I recalled it later, after gaining some distance from it, those cold, hard stones suddenly came alive in my mind. The vivid colors of those stalactites and stalagmites, their lifelike forms, their well-arranged, scattered order, and that winding, twisting secluded corridor all made one feel a harmonious charm, and the poetic feeling that had lain dormant in me for many years revived in this imagination:
——The old Dragon King has gone out to sea / the tornado also gradually subsides / when the treasures stored beneath the sea / slowly float to the surface / who still remembers the way home / the Little Dragon Maiden has already smiled into / a water lotus before the corridor pillar / leaning slightly, one can hear / the crisp tinkling of jade ornaments / a drop of water falls / and can splash up a dazzling radiance across the ground / a loud cough / bursts open the precious vase suspended in midair / casually pick up a stone / under the moonlight / one can still see reflected / the mermaid of the last century / the blue ripples she stirred……
I think I should admit that this long-term state of completing journeys of sightseeing through feeling and imagination has benefited me greatly. This attempt, moving from closeness back to distance, retreating from clarity to haziness, not only did not make me indifferent to the scenery that had once moved me, but instead gave me the chance to read their true charm more clearly and comprehensively. It not only restored the antennae of my thought, worn dull by busy and trivial work and life, but also made my imagination regarding all beautiful things around me richer, freer, and more vital than before, and my understanding of nature deeper and deeper. I have come to understand that truly beautiful scenery is far from enough to see with the eyes alone; one must draw close with the heart and feel it. Although what human eyes can reach may be more than the outward appearance of scenery, what the soul feels is the true essence of the scenery. The four major scenic areas of Zhangjiajie are similar yet different, but if you do not savor them carefully, you may not be able to tell any great difference among them at all: the same quartz sandstone, the same clear and beautiful waters, the same bluestone secluded paths, the same high mountains and deep mist. But as long as you comprehend them with your heart, you will discover their distinct beauties. For example, the peaks of Baofeng Lake must be viewed within that full, rippling pool of water to reveal their delicate beauty; Tianzi Mountain must be veiled in a sea of clouds to show its charm; the peaks of Huangshizhai need a heavy snowfall before they possess that heroic spirit of “on a clear day, see the silver-clad world, extraordinarily enchanting”; and the charm of Golden Whip Stream must be savored slowly, hand in hand with a lover, in the fine summer rain.
As for Yellow Dragon Cave, it must be after several visits, alone in the distance, by some unpeopled field, letting the soul fly into an imaginary little bird and quietly slip into the cave with the light breeze, letting intention follow the heart, the heart follow the spirit, and using the feathers of feeling to touch those vivid stones one by one……