Autumn clouds, vague and obscure; The evening, lonely and chill. I felt the dampness on my garments, But saw no spot, and heard no sound of rain.
Bai JuyiRead
A strip of water's spread in the setting sun, Half the river's emerald, half is red. I love the third night of the ninth month, The dew is like a pearl; the moon like a bow.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the beauty of nature during a specific time and season.
Bai Juyi's quote reflects a deep appreciation for the natural world, describing the enchanting transition of colors in a river at sunset and the captivating sights of the third night of the ninth month. Through vivid imagery of water, dew, and the moon, the quote evokes a sense of wonder and love for nature's beauty.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation on the importance of appreciating nature's beauty.
Autumn clouds, vague and obscure; The evening, lonely and chill. I felt the dampness on my garments, But saw no spot, and heard no sound of rain.
Two monks sit facing, playing chess on the mountain, The bamboo shadow on the board is dark and clear. Not a person sees the bamboo's shadow, One sometimes hears the pieces being moved.
A little child paddles a little boat, Drifting about, and picking white lotuses. He does not know how to hide his tracks, And duckweed's opened up along his path.
Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.
We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property.... Today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops.
From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
That is the earth, he thought. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of a hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upwards from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets, and winds, and birds
We torture and kill two billion sentient living beings every week. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one, and we are now facing the sixth mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this, a biologist would consider them a virus.
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
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