The Nine Cloud Dream Quotes

“Every evening, they enjoyed the moonlit streams, and in the day they explored the valleys, searching for plum blossoms. When they happened upon a sheer cliff face they would compose poems and play the lute in the shade of the pine trees.”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“They set off, walking hand in hand along the high precipices, gazing down at the cascading streams and the rushing waters. It was springtime, and myriad flowers filled the valleys below like a pink mist. The air was fresh and alive with an untold variety of birdsong.”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“Hsing-chen went back to his dim meditation cell and sat down alone. He could still hear the melodious voices of the eight fairies echoing in his ears, and his eyes seemed to see their beautiful forms and faces as if they stood before him in the room. He found it impossible to control his racing thoughts – he could not meditate.

He thought to himself: 'If a youth diligently studies the Confucian classics and serves his country as a minister of state or a general when he is grown into a man, he may dress in silks with an official seal upon his jade belt. He may look upon beautiful colors with the eyes and listen to beautiful voices with his ears. He may enjoy beautiful girls and leave an honorable legacy for his descendants. But a Buddhist monk has only a small bowl of rice and a cup of water. We read the sutras and meditate with our 108 mala beads hanging upon our necks. It is a lofty and profound endeavor, but it is terribly lonely. Though I may become enlightened, though I may master all the doctrines of the Mahayana path and sit in my master's seat to succeed him, once my spirit parts from my body in the flames of the funeral pyre, who will remember that a person named Hsing-chen ever lived upon this Earth?”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“The old monk laughed. "So you have yet to awaken from your spring dream."
"And how would you wake me up?: Shao-yu asked.
"It wouldn't be hard," said the old monk. He raised his staff and tapped the stone railing a few times. Suddenly, a mist rose from every direction in the gorge and nothing could be seen.”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“A man's life is but a fleeting moment.”
― Man-jung Kim, The Nine Cloud Dream

“You say the dream and the world are two separate things, and that is because you have yet to awaken from the dream.”
― Man-jung Kim, The Nine Cloud Dream

“His poetry was like Li Po’s, his calligraphy like that of the great Wang Hsi-Chih, and in strategy his cleverness matched that of Sun Pin and Wu Ch’i. He was well versed in astronomy and geomancy, in the six tactics and three practicalities.”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“Look north, he said, In the middle of that vast plain is a single lonely peak. In the light of the setting sun you can just make out the ruins of A-fang-kung, the palace of the great Ch'in Shih-huang, among the weeds and the high grass.
Look west. The wind is rustling the woods where the gray mountain mist hides Mou-ling, the tomb of Emperor Han Wu-ti.
In the east you can see the white wall reflecting the green hills where a red rooftop pierces the sky and the pale moon comes and goes. No one leans on the on the jade balustrades at Huang-ch'ing-kung where Emperor Hsuan Tsung frolicked with his ill-fated concubine Yang Kue-fei.
Those three emperors were for ten millennia the heroes of our history. Where are they now?
[Fenkl translation]”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream