Tsung Ping
Tsung Ping (375-443), also Zong Bing, style name Shaowen, was a Chinese philosopher and Buddhist writer from the Jin Dynasty period. He was also an artist, musician, and calligrapher. He argued against Confucianism. His works focused on infinitude of life and the relative insignificance of the present. He is know for writing the earliest surviving treatise on landscape painting, "An Introduction to Painting. Landscapes" (Hua shanshui xu). The work established the foundational ideas about nature's spiritual value and the artist's role in capturing its essence. He linked Confucian and Daoist ideas about nature and spiritual cultivation with artistic practice, influencing generations of painters. His works is a blending of Daoist naturalness, Buddhist contemplation, and Confucian self-cultivation.Wisdom & Quotes
- Life is not completed in a single life span; it cannot but pass on its impulses. If the chain of life is traced back into the past, one does not come to a beginning, and if one follows it into the future, one generation follows the next, and no end is ever found.
- Ch'ih-hsien shen-chou
- Mountains and waters possess form, yet they reach the realm of spirit.
- Now I am old and infirm. I fear I shall no more be able to roam among the beautiful mountains. Clarifying my mind, I meditate on the mountain trails and wander about only in dreams.” –– in The Spirit of the Brush
- Though one dwells in a room, one may roam among the peaks.
- When the mind is tranquil, the landscape reveals its truth.
– paraphrase
- To delight in mountains and streams is to forget the dust of the world.
– paraphrase
- To grasp the form without grasping the spirit is not true seeing.
– paraphrase
Seng Chao