Night 13 · Weekend long read · The night-walk thread

Moonlight at Chengtian Temple

承天寺的月色

元丰六年十月十二日夜，解衣欲睡，月色入户，欣然起行。念无与为乐者，遂至承天寺寻张怀民。怀民亦未寝，相与步于中庭。

On the night of the twelfth day of the tenth month in the sixth year of Yuanfeng, I was about to undress and sleep when moonlight entered the door. I rose, pleased, and went out. Thinking of no one to share the pleasure with, I walked to Chengtian Temple to look for Zhang Huaimin. Huaimin was also still awake. Together we walked in the courtyard.

Su Shi, “Record of a Night Walk to Chengtian Temple”; also “To the Tune of Immortal by the River” (Lin Jiang Xian)

02 Tonight

Sleep came an inch closer, then drew back. The room is too familiar, and the bed feels too much like a place demanding that you succeed at once. You turn over and wonder whether to get up. Getting up feels like admitting defeat. So you keep lying there, wearing out the waking.

03 How the ancients saw it

In 1083 Su Shi was in Huangzhou. It was the place of his exile after the Crow Terrace poetry case: deputy militia officer in name, something closer to house arrest in practice. The title remained; the work was thin; friends were few.

On the night of the twelfth of the tenth month, he was undressing for sleep when moonlight came in through the door. He records a light response: he rose, pleased, and went out. No pep talk. He saw the light, something moved, and he stood up.

Then he thought a pleasure like that is better shared. So he walked to Chengtian Temple to find Zhang Huaimin. Zhang, also banished to Huangzhou, was still awake. The two of them walked in the courtyard.

Of the moonlight there, Su Shi writes only a few lines. The ground looked as if it held water; in the water, algae and water plants crossed—actually the shadows of bamboo and cypress. At the end he says: what night has no moon, what place no bamboo or cypress—but people at leisure like the two of them are rare.

“People at leisure” is often read as self-mockery. Exiles are forced into empty time. It can also be read as a role that only holds at night: for the moment neither official nor worker, only two people still awake, willing to give sleepless time to moonlight and tree shadow.

There is another lyric from Huangzhou nights. Su Shi comes back from drinking, wakes from drunkenness again, finds the houseboy snoring like thunder, knocks and gets no answer, and leans on his stick to listen to the river. Unable to sleep, he does not force his way back into the room that demands sleep. He stands outside the door first and listens to water.

Stack the two texts and a concrete move appears. When the bed becomes a contest, move the body into a slightly larger space. Not to “fix insomnia.” Only to admit waking, and give waking somewhere to go. A courtyard, a hallway, a chair by the window—any of these will do. A modern apartment may not have Chengtian Temple, but it usually has a stretch of floor where you need not perform sleepiness.

Su Shi never announces in the piece that he slept afterward. The night walk does not hang its value on the ending. Moonlight at the door, rising, finding another person still awake, seeing bamboo and cypress shadow—these are already a complete event inside one night. If you get up and walk a few steps tonight and still cannot sleep, the walk is not wasted. The shadows have already crossed the ground once.

A weekend night can go a little slower. If you like, get up, pour a glass of water, stand at the window for sixty seconds of outside light, then come back. You need not call it meditation. Call it Chengtian Temple, or call it the hallway.

04 One line for the pillow

When you cannot sleep, first give waking somewhere to go.

05 A quiet image to end on

In the courtyard, bamboo shadow shifts once. Two pairs of steps move slowly, as if careful not to break the thin layer of light. Far off, the river sounds—once, then again.

Words of the night