A POEM
ENTITLED
THE PURE SKY
OF AN EARLY MORNING
BY MAI VAN
PHAN
TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH
BY POMPEN
HANTRAKOOL
EXPLICATED
BY
DR RAMESH
CHANDRA MUKHOPADHYAYA
TEXT
A small cup
of tea
Half a cup
is drunk
Sunlight
shines in sodden leaves
A true poet
perhaps could find great things as trifles and trifles as great things. A poem
on drinking tea could sound trifle with the western cultures. True that the
East is East and the West is West. But both the East and the West agree over a
cup of tea and it is the contribution of the Far East to the world. Drinking
tea is a way of life in Vietnam. On every occasion tea is served .And with the
people of Vietnam every time is perhaps tea time. Tea is served at the roadside
stalls along with a dish of sunflower seeds. There are teahouses . The
architecture of the tea houses are unique so that one knows a tea house by its
architecture. And there are myriad kinds of tea served in Vietnam.During the 13th
and 14 th century it was very polite to take tea. Scholars used to take tea to
concentrate on the subject matter of deliberation. Drinking tea purifies the
character and lifts up the morals- so did the elders believe. Vietnam if the
writer of the present essay is correct has the oldest tea plant that dates back to 1000 years.And some scholars do claim that tea plants
originated in Vietnam. Tea drinking is a tradition of the Vietnamese people for
over three thousand years. Chinese people have been drinking tea since 2500 BC
perhaps. There was a king who unknowingly took some poison and fell sick. Then
he took some tea and at once he was hale and hearty. The effect of the poison
was done away with. So earlier tea was taken as a medicine. Later the Buddhist
monks opted for tea so that they could be mindful in zazen. It was during the
Tang dynasty that tea drinking became universal in China.This is not all.Tea
became one of the major themes and motifs in Chinese literature. The cup that
cheers but never inebriates—Hurrah! But the introduction of tea is mingled with
different legends. Bhagavan Bodhidharma
the first patriarch of Zen it is said
fell asleep while meditating. When he woke up he was so angry with his eyelids
that he at once cut them off and lo! As soon as they fell on the ground a plant
was there. Bhagavan Bodhidharma ate its leaves and was at once charged with
fresh vitality. And it was Bhagavan Dogen who introduced tea in Japan.And there
are many Zen tales around tea and tea cups
This poem of
Mai Van Phan seems to spring from the very cultural backdrop of the Far East
that we have referred to..
Well it is morning.True a stork swoops upon its prey. A
dirty morning indeed. But at the same
time a bird sips from the clouds abloom in the morning Sun. And morning tea is
being served all over Vietnam in every family. And the poet observes a small
cup of tea. The cup itself is the earth element and receptacle. The tea stands
for the water element and the earth element.The teaplant springs from the
earth. A cup brimming with tea is like a person overflowing with love. It is
like a cloud heavy with water particles. But
nay. If the cup is full there will be no room for fresh knowledge and wi
sdom.This alludes to a zen story. In fact the mind has to be emptied. When the
furniture of thought provoked through the senses by the outer world is expelled
there are revelations from within, The bird drinks from the cloud laden with water particles. Bard is a homonym
of bird. So the poet is the bard and bird in one. He sips the tea slowly. And
in course of time half of the cup becomes empty.The poet does not follow the
zen guru literally. He does not drink the whole tea in the cup and empty the
cup. He sips from the small cup and it becomes half empty. And there is the
void. The void now mingles with the earth and
the water . Unless the void is there no sound could show up.A cup with a
half cup of tea And lo! Sun light fills
the void. The sunlight could be the symbol of pure consciousness that rises
with the waning of the consciousness of the outer world.And now earth air water
and fire the four elements mingle.The cup becomes the microcosm of the
universe. Since half of the cup is drunk the tea leaves are now distinctly
visible. They are soaked in the water.The earth element is soaked in the water
element.Now the sun shines upon them. . Why does the Sun shine upon the tea
leaves.Why does the Sun take care of the tea leaves.People could forecast the future
looking at a tea cup and looking at the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup.Descrying the
tealeaves at the bottom of the cup the foreteller can comprehend the remote
future. The Sun is the seer. One wonders what the Sun reads about our future and about the future of the world.What does the Sun
prophesy? There is no answer.The poet is here content to depict a situation.But
the Sun seems to stand for happiness success and power. So let us rejoice at
the sight of the Sun shining on the
soaked leaves of the tea.
Now looking at the title of the poem another level of the
meaning of the poem becomes obvious. The sky is itself the cup. Darkness is the
tea. Half of the tea is drunk.So it is
dawn the hour when light and
darkness meet. The Sun however shines on the soaked tealeaves or the Nature. A
very unique way of describing dawn. The
poet Mai Van Phan is always fond of the
moments when opposites meet.
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