Written on the Wall of the West Woods Temple
- Poetry of Su Shi

Su Shi was a jack of all trades back in the Song Dynasty. After visiting the mountains, he wrote this poem with the intention of reminding readers to not be blinded by personal prejudices so that we can see things as they really are.

This poem was composed in 1084 when our poet Dongpo was transferred to Ruzhou which is closer to the capital, a positive gesture from the Royal Court. The temple was on his way to the new post, so he visited his monk friend Can Liao there in Mt Lu (庐山) in Jiangxi, a well-known sightseeing destination.

Again the first two lines present the complexity of the natural beauty he saw while climbing Mt Lu, leading to the theme in the second couplet – an elevation of a conscious realisation that the subjective perspective could be incomplete, even misleading, as against the objective view of the whole picture of the world. I’d say this poem could serve as a good example of the Song ci poems which tend to seek a profound philosophical connotation to enlighten people’s mind with simple everyday language, a spiritual attitude of Zen. The last couplet has become a popular proverb in Chinese language.