Painting the Dao

101 ak21.74 Idle Ink and watercolour on xuan paper, mounted for framing 147 × 48 cm, Hong Kong, spring 2022 Four artist seals 水松石山房 Shuisongshi shanfang (Water, Pine and Stone Retreat) 墨者不朽 Mozhe buxiu (Let ink be my immortality) 竹虛老人 Zhuxu laoren (Old man as empty inside as bamboo) 石狂 Shikuang (Stone fool) inscr iption Transcendents tend to do everything idly, even when doing something inconsequential. Only when idle are the doors opened wide to the realm of infinite perception. I first composed this sentiment as a random jotting in the peaks-and-ponds-blessed lands south of the river as the faded might of Tang dissolved into history. My host was a poet of some renown, much of it with a tenuous hold on veracity, but he was authentic. He was also a staff master, where authenticity governs, as eventually it does in all else that rises above the inconsequential. He owned one staff that was unmemorable except for its form. It had extraordinary presence. Sinuous yet craggy, its ancient and experienced surface glistening so brightly it shimmered. The energy it gave off, the tickling fingers of time, commanded attention. It was never really meant for steadying a mountain path, but beside my host’s hearth it was timeless sculpture. Welcoming and rewarding to aesthetic attention but ultimately inexplicable. Inscribed by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, spring ’22.