On 'White Clouds Come and Go'

haku un ji kyo rai — White Clouds Come and Go.

On the origin

The latter line of the couplet “The green mountain does not move; the white clouds come and go of themselves,” derived from the Wudeng Huiyuan (Compendium of the Five Lamps), fascicle 4, entry on Chan master Lingyun Zhiqin of Fuzhou — given as his reply to a monk who asked how to escape birth, old age, sickness, and death. The primary text reads “the floating clouds, left to come and go” (浮雲任去来); the form “white clouds come and go of themselves” (白雲自去来) is the later received reading transmitted through the Zenrin Kushu.

On the reading

The mountain does not move; the clouds come and go of their own accord. What arrives is not held; what departs is not pursued. Their rising is no obstruction — only a passing view.

On the garment

The seal for this phrase was hand-carved in Tokyo by the artist Satake Hōsen. The front carries this phrase’s seal; the back and inside label carry the Hōsen seal (寳千), printed in vermilion.

The garment is Bella + Canvas 3001 (short sleeve) or Gildan 2400 (long sleeve). A vessel for the word, not the subject itself.

― hosen, tokyo