Ode to Wind and Sand

3,391 characters2006.04.22

Recently Beijing has been howling with wind, with yellow sand filling the sky; it really is not good weather.

When I was little, I liked rainy days and sunny days, and did not like wind. I always felt that fierce winds made people irritable, while a light breeze made them feel airy and insubstantial. Wind seemed to be associated either with violence or with frivolity.

But that is just like not liking to eat green vegetables and fish when one is a child: it is merely a matter of childhood.

That day, when I got up early and saw dust and sand all over the ground, the words that surged up in my heart were, unexpectedly, “How beautiful!” Although I knew that this meant the legendary sandstorm that had caused so many people endless misery, what met the eye was still a lovely scene.

I don’t know when it began, but I can no longer feel the slightest aversion toward any natural scene: whether rain, snow, wind, thunder, all of it is nature—where would it have any distinction of beauty and ugliness, good and evil?

It is only we human beings who distinguish good from evil, beauty from ugliness. It is we who impose our own feelings of joy, anger, love, and hatred onto the natural scene—saying that rain represents sorrow and wind symbolizes frivolity; in truth, what is sorrowful and frivolous is only the human heart.

What natural scene could possibly bring people a feeling of disgust? As the saying goes, “sound has no sorrow or joy” (声无哀乐), and nature itself also has no sorrow, joy, love, or hatred; at most, it only triggers emotions that already belong to us. If you find fierce wind irritating, you might as well examine your own heart, because that irritation must surely arise from the heart itself.

If the heart is filled with peace and delight, how could one feel ugliness, hatred, weariness, or irritation in the scenes of nature? As the saying goes, “nature is entirely beautiful,” and so-called “aesthetics” is certainly not “appreciating ugliness.” We never need to distinguish beauty from ugliness in nature, nor do we need deliberately to dig beauty out of somewhere, search for beauty, or create beauty; “aesthetics” speaks of how to feel beauty and appreciate beauty.

Of course, if everything in the world were beautiful to me, if I could no longer summon even a trace of annoyance or resentment in my heart, then I ought to consider taking up monastic life… For human beings, feelings of resentment, disgust, irritation, and aversion are the most normal emotions. But in any case, these “bad” feelings are not directed at nature; only the human heart can have ugliness.

What makes us human is precisely the ability to distinguish beauty from ugliness and good from evil. The human heart always contains ugliness and evil; the lesson of Genesis is profound—when human beings obtain “freedom,” the first thing they do is sin; and when human beings possess “wisdom,” the first thing they do is to cover themselves in shame and hide. It is precisely because there is ugliness in the human heart, and because human wisdom can reflect on that ugliness, while human feeling knows how to despise and hate ugliness, that human beings have become the most precious and lovable beings in nature!

The emotions of hatred and disgust that nature gives to human beings are not meant to teach us to resent nature, but to teach us to reflect on ourselves, and then to go on appreciating and praising that nature which is wholly beautiful!

The sand and dust filling the sky remind us that the grasslands and vegetation are being destroyed by human beings, reminding us to reflect on our own actions. But the sand and dust themselves, the fierce wind itself, like the gentle breeze, the fine rain, the flowers, and the rainbow, are all embodiments of the beauty of nature!

Let us quiet our hearts and listen to nature’s supremely beautiful song!

April 22, 2006