Listening to the Rustling of the Pines

"The clear melody of the qin rises/Quietly I listen to the cold wind rustling in the pines/ Though I love this ancient tune/ Few play it today."-"Playing the Qin," by Liu Changqing, Tang dynasty.

When we listen quietly to the pines, what does nature tell us? Is not the listener in Ma Lin's Listening to the Rustling of Pines hearkening to the still small voice of his inner self? （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

". . . The soughing pines on Mt. Cuiwei/ Shatter the silence of the empty hills/ The mountain wind sets pine shadows dancing on the window-paper/ But cannot blow your image from my heart."-"A Night on Mimo Cliff," by Hu Shih (Spring 1923).

Taiwan's pine trees have been described by adventurers, mountaineers and botanists, but did they hear the voice of the wind in the pines?

The same wind in the pines, but two different moods. Listening to the pines is an experience shared by very many people in the long river of Chinese history, and can also be part of the Taiwan experience.

"In Taiwan, the soughing of the pines is at its shrillest in spring." In his book Ecological Taiwan, botanist Chen Yu-feng writes: "The ancients called the sound made by pine needles in the wind songtao [song: pine; tao: the sound of waves crashing on the seashore]. Because the pine needles are regular in shape, from whatever direction they are blown they will produce a drawn-out sound. Each branch acts like a flute, rolling like waves; many branches together produce a tao. . . ."

Ringing in the ears

The soughing of the pines is a sound that has been heard for thousands of years. The west wind blowing into the pine forest in the wee hours inspired the sleepless Tang poet Bai Juyi with the line: "Deep in the night, you stealthily bring a splendid sound." Amidst the fury of an autumn wind whipping across a thousand peaks and valleys, the Tang poet Wang Wei, who in his old age wanted nothing but peace and quiet, was surprised to find himself moved by the resounding sough of the pines. In the Song, one person serendipitously discovered in a country pavilion that "when the wind comes the pines take voice"; another specially stayed awake just to "listen to the wind in the pines all day and night."

While the ears of Ming painter-poet Wen Zhengming were listening to the wind in the pines, his eyes were not idle. Hearing the pines in the fifth lunar month, he wrote: "The rain falls two full days/ My ears hear the wind in the pines, my eyes see a mountain stream." Outside his house he could see a stream cascading from a cliff, like a flowing rainbow in the sunshine; inside, there echoed the voice of the pines. Looking into the distance he could let his gaze roam across myriad peaks.

On the other hand, Zhang Chao of the Qing took cues from nature: "By trapping water, we may make duckweed our guest [in a garden]; by planting pines, we may make the wind our guest; by building a terrace, we may make the moon our guest. . . ." The Chinese like to plant pines in their gardens, not only for their evergreen color and beautiful shape, but also to hear them whisper with the wind. In the Qing Summer Palace at Chengde is a "Garden of Pine Winds over Myriad Peaks," made up of buildings grouped around a pine wood. When the wind catches the pines they roar like crashing waves. This and Tang poet Li Shangyin's "I listen to rain on lotus leaves" are two moving journeys of the senses.

Among all the varieties of plants, a love of the voice of the pines has been shared by sensitive people down the ages. Musicologists believe this is because pine branches' shape makes them most able to resonate like musical instruments. Pines' needle-like leaves, which have evolved in adaptation to their environment, are longer than those of other conifers such as redwoods and cypresses, and their foliage is quite unlike the thick leaves and stout branches of broad-leaved trees, which shake heavily and chaotically in the wind. When the wind blows through the pine wood, it raises a distant, lingering voice.

Of course, without the wind, the pines could not sough. But the pines do not purposely attract the wind, nor does the wind mean to seek out the pines. It's just that the sun-loving pines do not grow in dense thickets, but allow the air to flow freely around them. Thus, anywhere pines grow, there is almost sure to be soughing when the wind rises. When the invisible wind blows among pines it seems to take on form, and the waving branches seem to stretch out even longer.

In his paintings, the Southern Song artist Ma Yuan would often elongate the branches of wind-blown trees. In the cold of winter, his ancient pines' long branches sway in harmony with the wind; there is stillness amid their movement. The branches stretch freely in every direction, expressing the artist's desire to respect all the possibilities of the natural world. In the natural posture of the branches, romantic Ma Yuan reveals a love of freedom and a love of plants no less than that shown by "conservationists" today.

The thunder of countless valleys

"You can appreciate the wind in the pines on so many levels-it's totally absorbing," says folk music scholar Lin Ku-fang, who herself knows the voices of the pine woods. She feels that though there is not much variation in the sound, it has vigor and tension. Listening to the pines can be an experience as turbulent as "the wind raging over myriad cliffs" or as tranquil as "listening quietly to the rustling of pines." Just like a musician's sensitive ear, the voice of the pines is multifaceted.

When swayed by a mountain breeze, pine and cypress become impetuous, tossing their needles and branches wildly among the crags. When the wind grows stronger, the pines howl and roar like an angry tide crashing and recoiling, or like thunder in countless valleys. Modern nature photographer Hsu Jen-hsiu, who climbed Taiwan's Mt. Hsueh to photograph its winter scenery, and Yuan painter and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu, who built his house by the river at Huzhou, both experienced being awakened with a start deep in the night by the soughing pines.

Ceng Gongliang of the Northern Song stayed a day and a night at Ganlu Temple in Jiangsu. Fast asleep in his little room, he suddenly found that "close by my pillow were the clouds and wind of a thousand peaks, and from under my bed came the sad soughing of pines in ten thousand valleys. Waves struck silver mountains in the heavens, and had I opened the window, a mighty river would have come rushing in." With such an intense visual and aural experience in his dream, he seems to have been treated to a film in 3D Technicolor, complete with surround sound!

But even without surround sound, listening quietly to the rustling pines can be so captivating that one listens long and intently. When the pure, fresh breeze did not rest, Jing Hao, whose life spanned the fall of the Tang and the early Five Dynasties period, heard the whisper of the pines lingering long in the air. And even when the wind was still and the trees mute, Yuan Hongdao of the Ming could hear the dark foliage of a gnarled and twisted ancient pine soughing without the wind, in chorus with his friends the birds. When the white moon shines bright over silent mountains, and the wind in the pines is silent, poets still find inspiration: Wang Wei, hearing a rushing stream gurgle through jumbled rocks and flow away into the still depths of a pine forest, savored a pure sound which cannot be found in the clamorous world of men.

No need for strings and woodwind

The wind playing solo in the pines produces a thousand different tonalities, but with the other sounds of nature-bamboo, waterfalls, or running streams-it can perform whole symphonies.

The pine, bamboo and plum are the three friends of winter, and when pine and bamboo play in concert they create another unique delight for the ear. In Song painter Xu Dao-ning's Leaning on a Staff Under Pines, a hermit walking out on a small path from under the shadow of a thicket of dark pines and bright bamboo by a lake cannot help but stop and listen in fascination as the pines and bamboos dipping and bowing before the wind play out a melody to rival that of the lake's crashing waves.

Poets have likened the wind in the pines to the music of the qin, and the music of the qin to the wind in the pines. But Shen Zhou of the Ming, in his Waiting for the Qin, shows a clear preference for nature's sounds. In the distance, a servant boy approaches through the pines carrying a qin. But the main character is already entranced by a symphony of running water and soughing pines. Though he has brought his qin along on this excursion, he bows to the greater talents of nature and enjoys the sights and sounds of the mountain.

"When we listen to music, we interact with something separate from ourselves. But when we go into the woods and bury ourselves in the sound, we and the soughing are intermingled, in what can only be called heavenly music." Thus Lin Ku-fang believes man-made music cannot compare with the sound of the wind in the pines.

Among Chinese musical instruments, the portamento of the flute can best imitate the soughing of pines. Yet in traditional music there are few pieces which directly take the pine as their main theme. This, says Lin Ku-fang, is because in aural terms, "listening to the pines is something more basic than music." But "the greatest music has the sparsest sound," and the clear qin melody of which Liu Changqing lamented, "Though I love this ancient tune/ Few play it today," is said to have been none other than the traditional piece "The Wind Blows Into the Pines." This shows that Chinese music does indeed aspire after the heavenly sound of nature.

Silence is golden

Each artist's style reflects a unique personality, and Chinese paintings often reveal the painter's individual interpretation of the "language" of the pines. Soughing Wind Among Mountain Pines by Li Tang of the Northern Song, one of the ancient paintings from the National Palace Museum whose planned inclusion in an exhibition overseas stirred up such controversy last year, is well known for the way it builds on Southern and Northern Song stylistic traditions. In the center of the long hanging scroll stand a mountain and trees. They have an imposing grandeur, yet are upright and balanced about a vertical central axis, unmoved by any wind. So although there are mountain pines on myriad peaks, where is the soughing wind?

"When a painting captures the inner nature of the mountains and valleys, the wind is inherent within it," writes art historian Kao Mu-sen. The Song was the heyday of the School of Laws in Chinese philosophy, which stressed the defining inner nature within all things. Li Tang's Soughing Wind Among Mountain Pines demands that the viewer reflect quietly to appreciate the inner nature of what is depicted. If we concentrate carefully, we sense how, if only the wind were to blow, the tall pines in the quiet valley would whistle wildly; with this and the rush of the river, how can we say the picture is silent?

In Southern Song artist Ma Lin's Listening to the Rustling of Pines, the mountains are pushed away into the background, leaving only expanses of pale ink wash. A man sits under a tree, slightly leaning, listening. The creepers on the tree stream out in the breeze, and we almost hear the wind rushing in the pines. The ribbons on the man's garment are lifted by the wind, but he is completely entranced, for there is simply no music in the world to compare with the sound of the wind blowing through pine needles.

But is he only listening to the rustling of the pines? In fact, "listening to the pines" is only the first essential step towards calming the mind. Once one has reached a state of tranquillity, one's senses grow more acute, and one can begin to listen to more minute sounds. "What does it sound like when there is no sound? What words does nature have for us? When one's mind is calm, one begins to have many fulfilling aural experiences, and can hear even things that cannot be heard. Listening to the rustling of the pines? In fact he's listening to the still small voice of his inner self." Chang Hsun's interpretation of Ma Lin's work leaves even greater scope for imagination, vision and hearing.

The sound of enlightenment

The landscape paintings and landscape poems of the Chinese literati often expressed moods imposed by harsh political realities. The literati frequently praise lonely pines because the trees symbolize "perseverance after a wounding setback"-lonely beings protecting their own integrity in a troubled world.

Pine trees can be seen all over China. They have great vitality and are adapted to hostile conditions. The pine seeds grow wherever they fall: in cracks in rocks, on precipices. Thus they appear in tenacious postures, even clinging crazily to sheer crags. In late Autumn, when other trees have shed their leaves and the flowers have all withered, often all that is left is the "lone pine on a winter ridge." This unyielding courage in adversity gives the pine a special place in Chinese landscape painting.

The pine is also seen by the Chinese as a recluse, and although it is spoken of in the same breath as the chrysanthemum, plum and bamboo, the pine, being a tree and capable of enduring drought, grows deeper in the mountains, further from the human world. The masson pine, mainland China's most common pine, has soft, supple branches which wave like a Taoist master's horsetail whisk, and its shape and character are even more redolent of the hermit.

The poem "Summoning the Recluses" by Zuo Si of the Jin dynasty tells (satirically) how Zuo walks into the mountain forest with staff in hand, intent on summoning high-born recluses back to court. As he climbs he hears "the sound of the qin among the hills," but on reaching the ridge he sees no sign of a qin-playing hermit. He discovers that what he heard was in fact the sound of a babbling spring among the rocks, and the long sigh of the wind in the trees-the sounds of nature. In a flash of realization, he throws off his encumbering hair clasp, and with an easy mind he himself withdraws into reclusion in the forest. He builds a simple hut among the pines and bamboo, and from then on lives with the clouds before his door and walks empty-handed in the green woods, his clothes strewn with fallen flower petals.

China's Confucianists and Taoists both have a special regard for the pine tree. Even the Buddhists, who value spontaneous insight over theory, are happiest if they can sleep under pines among mosses and maple leaves, while someone brews strong tea and birds sing on the branches above.

Author Huang Yung-wu once wrote that when out-of-favor ministers or officials of collapsed dynasties chose seclusion for political reasons, or when someone became a hermit out of disillusionment with the humdrum coil of work and career, they did so to uphold their personal ideals. But if one's only motive is to enjoy such outdoor pleasures as hearing the pines or feeling spring rain in one's hair, then one need not cut oneself off from society in a self-imposed exile. The soughing of the pines' "greatest use is in its uselessness"; hearing the music of the autumn forest, or shouting and whooping with friends, are things one can enjoy any day, to drive away sorrows old and new. Or one can sit in the shade of the pines to drink tea or play chess, peacefully watching the setting sun shine on the pines and on one's windows.

But when the pine tree crossed from the natural world into the sphere of Chinese life, it became a "concept," so that even when one listened to the pines with no purpose in mind, it appeared to take on a significance.

"Flowers and bamboos are always valued for their youth, but the beauty of pines and cypresses is in old age," explains the book Sublime Perfection of Forest and Stream by Guo Xi of the Song. Unlike the Japanese cult of the cherry blossom, which lauds the flowers' short-lived blaze of glory and values the brilliance of youth, the Chinese conception of the pine is that it has seen enough of the ways of the world to understand that wealth and fashion are nothing but a passing smoke which clouds the eyes. The pine finds opportunity for survival in seemingly impossible conditions, and this becomes the basis for a different aesthetic: the joy of finding true purity when transient beauty has passed.

A fish let off the hook

Though Su Dongpo's career as an official started brilliantly, he was later banished into a succession of obscure posts, and after 30 years found himself in Huizhou in Guangdong Province. Far from his native place, Su looked back on his frustrated career and felt he had spent 30 years in a dream of illusory glory. On awakening he now found himself mired in the mud of human politics, his future uncertain. He felt like a fish caught on a hook, unable to swim up or down.

Late that year Su walked up to Pine Wind Pavilion on the mountain above Jiayou Temple where he lived. Below the pavilion the plum trees were already in blossom. The path was winding and difficult, and he sat down to rest, wondering how he would ever reach his goal. But then all at once his mood changed: Why shouldn't he rest wherever he pleased? Why insist on struggling on to the bitter end? With this realization, he felt that the hooked fish had been returned to the ocean, and he was suddenly completely at ease.

For the love of pines

From the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove in the Wei and Jin dynasties, who imitated the long cry of the soughing pines; and the oft-inebriated Tang poet Li Bai, who praised at length the song of the wind in the pines; to Hu Shih, one-time president of the Academia Sinica, whose mood was often as stormy as "the wildly howling pines on Mount Cuiwei"-Chinese literati have often needed the soughing of the pines to soothe their ruffled souls.

Even kings and emperors facing times of frustration or tragedy looked to the pines for company. Emperor Lizong of the Southern Song often went to the Gan Garden by the West Lake in Hangzhou, where there was a pine tree he particularly liked; years later, when the garden had changed hands several times, someone wrote a poem describing how only the pine was still as before.

Compared with the lonely pines standing among great mountains and ageless rivers, the material aspirations of the human world are transitory and fleeting. As life and history pass, even the greatest sorrows will be wiped away. When we humans see how nature is unconcerned at our troubles, our own mood in the face of adversity or disaster may be calmed: what is owned may be lost, and the present may pass-one need only seek compensation in one's own soul.

Listening quietly to the pines

During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, the Japanese adventurer Tori Ryuzo, setting out to climb Yushan, ascended to where the broad-leaved forest gives way to conifers. He looked around him and found that "with so many pines, the scenery is like Japan's." In fact, of course, Taiwan's mountains do not closely resemble Japan's. But the feeling people have experienced since ancient times on going into the pine forest and hearing the rush of the wind in their needles is the same everywhere. "Pinks, rhododendrons and wild lilies vied with each other in splendor, and at corners of crags, conifers such as pines and cypresses stood tall, while birds sang in the valleys." After taking in this most typical Taiwanese mountain scene, Tori naturally did not fail to partake of one of the gifts of nature: "I rested a moment under a pine, a gust of cool wind brushing my skin. From below to my right came the sound of a stream, seemingly close enough to touch. . . ."

"Turning a corner, the bus had climbed to the height of the temperate forest. There was no longer the rustling of bamboo leaves; through the windows came the sound of soughing pines, and both sides of the road were dark with Japanese red cedar, Taiwan red pine and Pinus morrisonicola. The treetops towered over the road, and serried ranks of trunks rushed by one after another. . . ." Thus Taiwanese author Huang Wen-fan describes a journey up to Mt. Hsueh from Tungshih in Taichung County.

Taiwan's pines stand proud atop her mountains. As long as they have not withered, then like Chen Yu-feng, Lin Ku-fang and others down the ages, we too can let their soughing rush in our ears. When we return to the noisy city, the echo of that ancient sound lingers long in our hearts. . . .

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"When a painting captures the inner nature of the mountains and valleys, the wind is inherent within it." Soughing Wind Among Mountain Pines is one of the most ancient and treasured works in the National Palace Museum's collection. Looking closely at the water rushing over the rocks, we hear the pines' faint whisper. (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)Lonely green pines clinging to mountain ridges have long been the epitome of the landscape in Chinese people's hearts. In the paintings of the literati, the Huangshan pines growing on the precipitous slopes of Mt. Huang in mainland China may be desolate or boisterous, according to the mood of the artist. (courtesy of Tseng Yun-chih)

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"When a painting captures the inner nature of the mountains and valleys, the wind is inherent within it." Soughing Wind Among Mountain Pines is one of the most ancient and treasured works in the National Palace Museum's collection. Looking closely at the water rushing over the rocks, we hear the pines' faint whisper. (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

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When we listen quietly to the pines, what does nature tell us? Is not the listener in Ma Yuan's Listening to the Rustling of Pines hearkening to the still small voice of his inner self? (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

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Taiwan's pine trees have been described by adventurers, mountaineers and botanists, but did they hear the voice of the wind in the pines?

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"A faint moon appears between the pines/ Her pure light reminds me of you." The hustle and bustle of human life is fleeting, and of no consequence to the lonely pine growing among the mountains and rivers. When all passion has subsided, nothing remains but bright moon and the eternal pine in loving companionship.

"A faint moon appears between the pines／ Her pure light reminds me of yo u." The hustle and bustle of human life is fleeting, and of no conse-quence to the lonely pine growing among the mountains and rivers. When a ll passion has subsided, nothing remains but bright moon and the eternal pine in loving companionship.