Shih-Te

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This article is about the poet Shide. For the Shinto ward, see Shide (shinto).

Shih-Te (Chinese: 拾得; pinyin: shídé) was a minor T'ang dynasty Chinese Buddhist poet, who lived from approximate 780 C. E. to 850 C. E. in Kuoching Temple (國清寺), in the Tientai mountain range on the East Chinese Sea coast; roughly contemporary with Cold Mountain and Big Stick, but younger than either. He was close friends with both and together they formed the "Tientai Trio". Shih-Te lived as a lay monk, and worked most of his life in the kitchen of Kuoching Temple.

[edit] Name

An apocryphal story relates how Shih-Te (which literally means 'Pick-Up' or 'Foundling') received his name: Once, Big Stick was travelling between Kuoching Temple and the village of Tientai, when at the redstone rock ridge called 'Red Wall' he heard some crying. He investigated, and found a ten-year old boy who had been abandoned by his parents; and picked him up and took him back to the temple, where the monks would raise him.

[edit] Poetry

Shih-Te wrote an unknown number of poems, but 49 have survived. They are short; and rarely exceed 10 lines. They typically on a Buddhist subject, and executed in a style reminiscent of Cold Mountain's. Indeed, Shih-Te's Poems 44 and 45 have often been considered to really have been written by Cold Mountain; not impossible as the two were especially good friends- see Poem 33:

           We slip into Tientai caves,
           We visit people unseen-
           Eat magic mushrooms under the pines.
           We talk about the past and present
           And sigh at the world gone mad.
           Everyone going to Hell
           And going for a long time.

The case for Poems 44 and 45 being misattributed is further strengthened by the fact that Poem 45 is otherwise the only poem in Shih-Te's canon which contains Taoist motifs- which are common in Cold Mountain's poetry. See Poem 45:

           Up high the trail turns steep,
           The towering pass stands sheer;
           Stone Bridge is slick with moss.
           Clouds keep flying past,
           A cascade hangs like silk,
           The Moon shines in the pool below.
           I'm climbing Lotus Peak again,
           To wait for that lone crane once more.

Common subjects include back-sliding monks and the foolishness of worldly people in both short-sightedness and their sins; like in Poems 43, 38 and 30, respectively:

           By and large the monks I meet
           Love their wine and meat.
           Instead of climbing straight to Heaven
           They slip back down to Hell.
           They chant a sutra or two
           To fool the laymen in town,
           Unaware the laymen in town
           Are more perceptive than them.

           People crowd in the dust,
           Enjoying the pleasures of the dust.
           I see them in the dust
           And pity fills my heart.
           Why do I pity their lot?
           I think of their pain in the dust.

           Take these mortal incarnations
           These comical-looking forms
           With faces like the silver moon
           And hearts as black as pitch.
           Cooking pigs and butchering sheep,
           Bragging about the flavor,
           Dying and going to Frozen-Tongue Hell
           Before they stop telling lies.

Other subjects included him and his friends. See Poems 27 and 39, respectively:

           Partial to pine cliffs and lonely trails,
           An old man laughs at himself when he falters.
           Even now after all these years,
           Trusting the current 'like an unmoored boat'.

           A young man studied letters and arms
           And rode off to the Capital,
           Where he learned the Hsiung-nu had been vanquished;
           And all he could do was wait.
           So to kingfisher cliffs he retired,
           And sits in the grass by a stream
           While valiant men chase red cords
           And monkeys ride clay oxen.

(The 'Hsiung-nu' (Xiongnu) were probably the 'Huns', and the young man possibly not just the generic 'young man', but Cold Mountain.)

And sometimes he simply wrote about the Tientai mountain range where he lived. See his final poem, Poem 49:

           Woods and springs make me smile;
           No kitchen smoke for miles.
           Clouds rise up from rocky ridges,
           Cascades tumble down.
           A gibbon's cry marks the way,
           A tiger's roar marks the way.
           Pine wind sighs so softly,
           Birds discuss sing-song.
           I walk the winding streams,
           And climb the peaks alone.
           Sometimes I sit on a boulder,
           Or lie and gaze at trailing vines.
           But when I see a distant village,
           All I hear is noise.

[edit] Reference

• The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, Red Pine, Copper Canyon Press 2000, ISBN 1-55659-140-3

Persondata
NAME	Shide
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Shih-Tse; Shih-tse; Pick Up; Pick-up
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Chinese Zen monk and poet
DATE OF BIRTH	8th or 9th century CE
PLACE OF BIRTH	Near Mt. Tientai
DATE OF DEATH	8th or 9th century CE
PLACE OF DEATH	Near Mt. Tientai