Sea of Ink Read online

  Jesuits, who had come from distant Europe, worked at the court of the last Ming emperor. Under their influence the mother of the emperor, his wife and his son had converted to Christianity. In 1650 the Polish Jesuit Michał Boym left for Rome with a letter from the emperor addressed to the superior general of the Jesuits and the pope, begging for assistance to save the Ming dynasty.

  After a two-year journey, Boym reached Venice. The pope’s reply took three years and the envoy did not return to China until 1659. By now, all offers of assistance were too late. Nothing remained of the court and Michał Boym died that same year without having handed over the papal message.

  As soon as Qing rule had been consolidated, the Jesuits returned to the court in Peking.

  9 While the Qings severed the last few veins of the old dynasty, letting the blood seep away, in the monastery Chuanqi was studying the teachings of peace and quiet, Chuanqi the monk who had once been a prince called Zhu Da.

  The old empire was destroyed, but the mountains of Fengxin were still the same. The trees and rivers had not changed, and the cawing of the crows sounded no different from before.

  In 1653 Chuanqi was admitted to the small circle of pupils of Abbot Hongmin. Four years later he completed his master’s examination. Now he was qualified to pass on the tenets of Buddhist wisdom to the younger scholars.

  His former life as a prince seemed ever more unreal, as if it had been a lengthy preparation for the path he had now chosen.

  ‘Teach yourself how not to get involved,’ the abbot said. ‘Do not act; rather acquaint yourself with the feeling of wanting to act, but not doing so. Only act when what you are able to do corresponds with what you wish to do.’

  The abbot smiled and added, ‘We were all princes once.’

  Sometimes Chuanqi would stroll down into town, driven by curiosity to see what had changed. He wandered through the streets, gesticulating wildly and creating quite a sensation with his sobbing fits and outbursts of screaming. In the local taverns he drank wine until he fell down senseless.

  People thought he was a madman.

  Nobody knew, or even suspected, that inside Chuanqi the monk was the Prince of Yiyang from the last generation of the Ming dynasty.

  The silence in the temple comforted him. He learnt to forget and he felt a powerful sense of calm permeate his whole being.

  The pavilion afforded an expansive view across the plain to a distant chain of hills. One day – it was winter and had been snowing – he stood with the master by the balustrade on the terrace, enjoying the fantastic view.

  ‘Chuanqi,’ the abbot said, ‘you see the faintly curved line of the distant horizon in the snow? Practise absorbing this line inside you. Become one with things and flow away with them. This is the basic rule for preserving life.’

  In spring, when the snow had melted, Chuanqi appeared before the master and said, ‘That line you talked about: I’ve absorbed it.’

  Without moving, Abbot Hongmin gave him a long stare. Then he said, ‘Chuanqi, it is now time to discard your novice’s name. Today I will give you a new one. From now on you will be called Xuege – snow aside. You are now a master of the inner world and ready for the teachings of the outer world.’

  10 Abbot Hongmin knew of Xuege’s desire to become a painter, but until then he had strictly forbidden him to touch a paintbrush. On that day in spring 1658, in the fourteenth year of the Qing dynasty, he believed the moment had come to begin the painting lessons.

  The master gave Xuege a brush which was as long as his legs and as thick as a young tree trunk. He instructed his pupil to stretch out his arms and hold the brush by its loop so that the tips of the bristles just touched the floor.

  In the tea room the master had made a large square with rolls of rice paper. The abbot pointed to a wooden tub in the corner and said, ‘Dip the brush into the bucket and wipe off the ink a few times on the rim. Then go back to your place without delay.’

  When the brush was saturated with black ink it was considerably heavier. Xuege had trouble lifting it high enough to wipe it on the edge of the tub. He returned to his place, held the brush with outstretched arms as the master had instructed and watched a black dot appear on the paper, which began expanding rapidly as the ink flowed out.

  The master stood behind him, breathing words into Xuege’s ear: ‘Pace out a circle, painting it as you move. Keep going in a circle until the trace of your brush has faded.’

  His muscles tensed, Xuege held the brush vertically over the sheet so that the tips of the bristles were just touching the paper, and moved forwards, step by step. After the first circle Hongmin noticed that Xuege’s lips were pressed tightly shut.

  ‘You should paint, not stop breathing.’

  In fact Xuege had great difficulty concentrating on the brush tip and the imaginary midpoint of his circle at the same time. He could not stop and rest because he would waste ink; moreover it was almost harder to hold the brush while standing still.

  Xuege went on and the shining black bristles left behind a thin trace on the paper. After another circle his teacher said, ‘You went in a circle but you did not draw one. Do not make any detours. Go on, improve the circle.’

  The abbot said no more as Xuege completed his third, fourth and fifth circles. Then he forgot to count. Each step became a torture. He was just blindly following his own track.

  The line became ever fatter, for the brush sank lower and lower with Xuege’s vanishing strength. His arms trembled and the brush transferred even the slightest movement onto the paper.

  The abbot now sounded dictatorial: ‘Your line is starting to shudder, Xuege. Let it go on for as long as there is still ink left. Stand up straight. Listen to what I tell you!’

  After another half-turn Xuege’s back started giving way. But all of a sudden he felt the short, sharp stroke of a bamboo cane in his side. He completed the circle. Was it the ninth? Or the tenth? His master’s gaze burnt into his back, but he knew that he would not be able to manage yet another circle.

  Then he collapsed on top of the brush. His body fell onto the cluster of bristles, squashing them so that the last remaining ink flowed out and made large dark stains on the paper as well as on his white robe. He looked like a dying man lying in his own blood.

  When Xuege glanced up, his face contorted with pain, expecting a second, possibly harder stroke of the bamboo cane, he saw his master’s severe expression.

  ‘If you ever wish to become a Master of the Great Ink you must learn to hold the brush firmly. Let it go only when no ink is left. Never before.’

  11 For many months he drew large circles with the heavy brush.

  One day the master unexpectedly ordered Xuege to rebuild a derelict monastery complex in a remote spot in the Fengxin mountains.

  Xuege devoted himself to this task with all his energy. The renovation of the temple took six years.

  The new monastery was called Green Cloud.

  From then on he lived in the solitude of the mountains, immersing himself ever deeper in the teachings of the Tao. His responsibilities as the leader of a community of monks prevented him from leaving the Green Cloud for lengthy periods of time, but not from receiving friends and acquaintances as guests.

  One evening he went into the pine forest alone. The mountain peaks were glowing in the evening light. It appeared as if a giant had carved them with a huge knife. The flat rocks looked so clean, as if they had been washed. The stream snaked its way upwards, ending in a mere silver thread.

  When Xuege spotted a swathe of white flowers along the riverbank he took off his shoes, walked over, bent down and greeted them as if they were children. He had a sudden, burning desire to see all the flowers of Jiangxi in one evening. He ran barefoot across the springy floor of the pine forest; he was dancing with the earth. The light and the pines and the stream and the flowers were there for him alone, and in his happiness Xuege forgot his exhaustion and sorrow, and his heart became as light as a feather.

  If you ar
e guided by human feelings you will easily lose your way, a wise saying went, but if you are guided by nature you will rarely go wrong.

  Now he had understood.

  He finally sat down. The place was so quiet and remote; no monk ever found his way here. He thought: Even if I sat here for three hundred years the mountains would not fall.

  A formation of wild geese passed over him like an arrow of feathers seeking to strike desire itself. The stone he was sitting on and the entire ground under him seemed to melt away.

  I’d like to live here for the rest of my life, he told himself, until I die on this mountain.

  Then he recalled his life as Zhu Da, as a young prince, and he recalled his wife’s black hair and his son’s first smile.

  But these images were not memories, rather the dream of a life never lived.

  12 The following day he woke with a terrible heaviness in his heart. Somebody seemed to be calling him; he thought he could hear a distant voice but could not understand it. Gripped by an inner urge, he went to his desk, where every day for years he had completed the drawing exercises the master had set him.

  He poured some water into the hollow of the rubbing stone, took the hard block of ink and rubbed it. Then he selected one of his finer brushes and dipped it in.

  He had laid a square piece of yellowy-white paper on the desk, which was around four hand’s widths in size. At the lower edge and slightly to the left, he set down the paintbrush, drawing it upwards in a gentle curve, half a finger’s width, which started to the left then changed direction halfway up the paper. A second later he applied a little more pressure to the brush and veered it back to the left. He let this thickened line run to a black point that almost touched the edge of the paper and, without lifting the paintbrush, cocked his wrist, whereupon the tips of the bristles pirouetted; and now the brush glided back down the line in the opposite direction, and beyond onto the blank paper; then with another turn of the wrist he brought his hand down towards himself, lifting the brush from the paper in a slow but fluid movement so that the bottom of his line tapered as evenly as the top had.

  And without adding more ink to the brush, he immediately covered the bottom third of the paper with wave-like shapes stacking up to the right, either with a flick of his wrist or by pressing down his hand to leave black streaks which came out darker or lighter depending on the pressure. Just before the paintbrush ran out of ink he took it to the upper right-hand corner of the paper and, holding it vertically, signed the picture with the name Geshan – single mountain.

  Then he put his brush aside. To finish, he printed his seal in red ink beneath the signature.

  He went out onto the terrace, gripped the balustrade and closed his eyes.

  Geshan had painted his first picture.

  After a while he returned to his desk and looked at the lotus flower which had appeared on the paper. Its black-painted bloom looked white and lit up his signature in the corner.

  Why did he think he could recognize himself in the line of the flower stem and the outlines of the petal?

  When he placed his right hand on the white, unpainted part of the paper he noticed that the stem and the lower part of the flower traced the outline of his thumb and wrist almost exactly. With ink he had painted a flower, and with the area he had left blank he had depicted part of his hand.

  The flower grew out of the swamp and slime into the air above, there to unfurl its beauty in clear, sharp outlines.

  Lotus flower

  13 Geshan alias Xuege alias Chuanqi alias Zhu Da brought the lotus flower painting to Master Hongmin for appraisal. He said, ‘I can see that you have grasped much already. You have understood the sense of form and three-dimensional shape; your brush is able to express the curve of the stem and the surface of the petals; it can portray light and colours. You have learnt to see blackness not as an obstacle, but as a source. Here the black depicts a shining white; there, a muted brown or a transparent greenish-blue. You have, moreover, made good progress in understanding the essence of things. Your brush suggests some of the floweriness of the flower and the wateriness of the water. That is much already. But there are still lessons you need to learn to master the black ink.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘It is not my place to tell you that. You must happen upon it for yourself. But you will know when the right moment has come. That I do not doubt.’

  ‘Master, give me at least a clue as to how I can improve myself.’

  ‘You will find all the answers inside yourself. Are you nothing more than a combination of various types and forms of surface? Why should your picture be created only from stiff outer layers that lack all sensibility?’

  Geshan gave him an enquiring look. After a while the master added, ‘When you paint you do not speak. But when you have painted, your brush should have said everything. When it has learnt how to speak you will be a Master of the Great Ink.’

  14 Geshan had been running the Monastery of the Green Cloud for several years and his reputation as a master of the Tao had spread throughout the entire province. One day the artist Huang Anping paid him a visit to paint his portrait. Geshan agreed on the condition that he could dress up for it.

  While Huang prepared to paint and rubbed the ink, Geshan went down to the river. He asked a fisherman to lend him his straw hat and shoes. In the monastery he borrowed a white robe from one of the monks.

  He stood before the painter with his hands in front of his chest so that the wide sleeves hung down heavily in long folds. His feet were in black sandals and he gazed out sceptically from beneath the broad brim of the fisherman’s hat which covered his head like a huge lotus flower.

  The year was 1674.

  The Manchus had brought the entire country under their dominion. As they venerated Chinese culture, they tried to win over artists and scholars. The final scattered members of the old dynasty were accorded special recognition by the Manchus.

  Huang Anping told all of this to Geshan as they sat together drinking that evening. They decided to disclose the identity of the fisherman in the picture and so, next to his portrait of Geshan, Huang Anping wrote: Scion of the imperial line of the Ming dynasty.

  But how had Huang managed to convey the imperial destiny in the facial features of the fisherman? To begin with, the small figure of Geshan stood utterly lost against the empty white background. But Geshan invited special visitors to the Monastery of the Green Cloud to leave behind their seal or a verse on his portrait. His friends Rao Yupu, Peng Wenliang and Cai Shou covered the blank space with their calligraphy, expressing their esteem for the man in the fisherman’s hat. Gradually the background was filled with seals, sayings and testimonies of friendship until they bordered the figure.

  15 Geshan discussed with the master the relationship between the tall mountain and the small piece of paper, between the hardness of the rock and the softness of the paintbrush.

  ‘How is it possible to express magnitude through smallness, hardness through softness and light through darkness? How can one thing be expressed by another which it is not?’

  ‘You need to overcome the contradictions in your mind,’ the master began. ‘Learn to combine them as you do ink and brush. A thing is a thing in relationship to itself, but also in relationship to other things. It is this as well as that. Even if we comprehend the thing only from the perspective of the this, it is nonetheless determined by both this and that.’

  The master paused for a moment.

  ‘Do not, therefore, become enslaved by the perspective of absolute opposites. This is also that, and that is also this,’ he reiterated. ‘At the point they cease to be in opposition you find the axis of the Path. The Path becomes obscured if you walk down it only one way.’

  ‘Your words themselves are obscure, Master,’ Geshan said. ‘How does what you say influence the handling of the brush?’

  ‘For me as a painter the value of the mountain is not in its size, but in the possibility of mastering it with the paintbrush. W
hen you look at a mountain you are seeing a piece of nature. But when you paint a mountain it becomes a mountain. You do not paint its size, you imply it. The importance of the brush lies not in the extent of its bristles, but in the traces it leaves behind. The importance of the ink lies not in the ink, but in the power of expression and mutability of its flow. The importance of the mountain stream lies not in itself, but in its movement; the importance of the mountain lies in its silence.’

  Then he continued: ‘Your hand is your guiding spirit. You have everything in your hand. The line that unites is contained in all things.’

  And he added: ‘When you dip your paintbrush into the ink, you are dipping it into your soul. And when you guide the paintbrush, it is your spirit guiding it. Without depth and saturation your ink lacks soul; without guidance and liveliness your brush lacks spirit. The one thing receives from the other. The stroke receives from the ink, the ink receives from the brush, the brush receives from the wrist and the wrist receives from your guiding spirit. That means mastering the power of both ink and brush.’

  16 One day the master summoned him and said, ‘It is important that you paint only with the best ink and the best brushes.’

  ‘How will I recognize the best ink?’

  ‘It should breathe in the light like the feathers of a raven and shine like the pupils in a child’s eyes.’

  The master invited Geshan to sit down in the middle of the room with his back to the light and instructed him not to move.

  ‘I will teach you how to spot the difference between everyday ink and superlative ink.’

  The abbot disappeared behind a screen. After a while he came back with a piece of paper. Geshan read out loud the sentence the master had just written: ‘It is not the man who wears the ink down, but the ink that wears the man down.’