Master Ji introduces the unknown couple as Wu Xianweng and his wife. They are from Suzhou, but now they have come from Wuxi in order to spend the day with them. And this, he gestures towards the beautiful woman next to him, who blushes a little, is his own wife. Master Ji orders only some bottles of boiling water, then he takes from his pocket a large bag of tea, and tells them that this is Longjing tea, and that this is what they will be drinking, because this is the best. He places the leaves in everyone’s cups and then pours the boiling water over them; for a while there is silence, a little self-consciousness, while from outside, from the courtyard, the twittering of birds can be heard, and the staff withdraws behind a distant counter.
Stein is the first one to speak but it’s as if he wouldn’t have to begin, as if they were in conversation already: he does not introduce himself, which perhaps would have been proper, but begins to speak about what connects him so closely to the arts of China. He speaks in short sentences so that it will be easier to translate: he feels that it doesn’t matter what kind of art one draws close to in China, it doesn’t matter whether one starts out from poetry, music, philosophy, painting, architecture, theatre, calligraphy or the art of gardening, because one always ends up in the same place, as if every form of artistic expression were striving for one and the same conceptualization or depiction. Or as if it were obliged to do so. Because somehow, says László Stein, it is the same with these arts as with our flowers at home, which we really love — we believe that we choose them and we love them. But it is they who choose us, they, who with their enchanting beauty, oblige us to love them and take care of them. Each flower is uniformly beautiful. Together, they share in beauty. What is entrusted to us is to decide the one of which we shall speak. And, he says to Wu, he would now like to speak of the art of gardening, and he would like to know his opinion: What does he, Mr Wu, coming now from Wuxi, see as the essence of the Chinese garden? Is it possible to say that a person can take refuge in a garden of Suzhou, if he wants to be immersed in thought, if he wants to be immersed in a beauty which everywhere else has been lost?
Wu does not answer for a while. He is silent for so long that everyone at the table becomes embarrassed. Embarrassed, but not because they don’t understand his silence but perhaps because they presume that it will be difficult for Stein to understand it. Stein, however, waits patiently, because he thinks that Wu is thinking about his answer. And so he is.
wu. The art of gardening in Suzhou is a product of imperial China. It was created by those who thought they could find their freedom only here, amid the stones, the flowers, the trees and the silence of the pavilions. The Chinese garden is at once the location and the emblem of withdrawal from society. For each individual, the garden was his own world, as it were, the expansion of who he was.
He is a lean man of average height. Up close, now that he is sitting beside Stein at the table, it is particularly striking how beautiful his face is, how immobile. His voice, in contrast to his slender, frail stature, is deep and decisive, full of strength, even if it is barely audible. Stein is sitting the closest, but Wu speaks so softly that he can hardly hear him, and the interpreter — who tries to wedge himself in closer between them — can also hardly hear him. As if he were extremely, endlessly weary. Again he is silent for a long time, but before Stein can speak again, he continues.
wu. The garden, however, is an artificial creation. As for myself, if I try to think of a location suitable for withdrawal, I would never seek out a garden. There are many times when I wish to be somewhere in silence. And at such times I do leave. Then with my wife or my friends I go somewhere away from the city. But it never occurs to us to go to a garden. Only to the mountains, the streams, out into nature.
Stein relates in a few sentences how deeply and radically his own relation to nature has changed over the past 10 or 15 years. He tells Wu about that place, that remote valley high up in the mountains, where he lives. And how his garden is a part of that nature which surrounds him.
wu. That is a fortunate situation. A bountiful life, a life worthy of the human being. I am filled with great joy that you are able to live in this way.
Stein replies by describing how that place where he lives has changed so much in terms of its relationship to poetry. In terms of its relationship to language. That he continually feels as much too crude and harsh that which must be continually, but continually, alleviated — alleviated to the point of infinity.
wu. Art is the means by which one can go from the complex to the simple, but we cannot miss a single intermediary step on the way. Its mission is to penetrate to the essence of something. And that is simple.
Who is this person?! Master Ji sees the effect his friend is having on Stein, and he takes this in with a fairly satisfied and slightly ironic gaiety, like someone who has been equal to the task entrusted to him. After every sentence, Wu is silent for a long time. He sits there, unmoving, his head does not stir, nor his gaze which somehow. . is looking at nothing in particular. He looks a bit at Stein, then away, at the table, at the steaming tea cups, and then again up at him, and then again to one side. Due to his unusually soft speech, Stein feels that an exceptional silence is looming over the teahouse itself in which furthest and the tiniest sound can be heard. The noise, as one of the staff suddenly clinks one teacup against another behind the counter, seems unbearable. There is an unbelievably deep silence.
wu. And in this, as in so many other things, Chan is the most radical. Chan is not interested in what is written down. It doesn’t need any words.
Stein replies that the viewpoint has emerged in Europe as well that the conscientious artist is the one who leaves no works behind.
wu. This is the opinion of the Buddhists. The master never writes down anything, he only teaches. The teachings can never be written. If you are conversing with the heavens, you are never in need of words.
At the same time, Stein says, he could never imagine life without words. Frankly speaking, he continues, unwillingly adapting himself to Wu, as if from this point on this would be the normal course of their conversation — speaking, accordingly, barely audibly — he could never exist without words. Because in order to depict how the eternal emerges from a landscape, some kind of material is necessary. A material which may circumscribe that beauty which cannot be transmitted in words.
wu. The essence rests on the surface of emptiness. It leaves room for thought. Classical Chinese poetry and painting worked with few words and with a small amount of ink. Li Bai, when writing, always used just a few strokes, just a few words, because he knew that what he didn’t describe was what gave monumental strength to meaning. It is very hard for someone who comes from the West to understand the meaning of empty space. Your conception of a ‘thing’ radically differs from what we understand by that. And so, for you, the extraordinarily rich meanings of emptiness do not exist as they do for us. They do not exist, therefore they cannot be compared with anything else. There is no place in you where you could understand what emptiness is. And the essence of Chinese art is this emptiness.
Master Ji interrupts. And he is hardly recognizable now, it is clear that until now he has been listening with rapt attention, he has been watching Stein, who only now realizes that Master Ji hasn’t taken his eyes off him all this time.
master ji. Do you meditate?
Stein says yes, he does, in his own way.
wu. That’s good. You can go deeper.
master ji. Yes, the strength of the heart is multiplied.