Jing Guan Yin is attributed to the Tang dynasty poet Li Mian, and transmitted by Xia Yifeng based on Mei Yueqiang’s teaching score. The piece unfolds in three sections.
The Yang Lun Boya Xin Fa describes its spirit in a single passage: “Weary of the world’s endless noise and confusion, seeing all things in motion without rest — one withdraws to a place of stillness, and from that stillness, observes.” The melody does not seek to move the listener. It seeks to still them.
Jing Guan — still observation — is a classical Daoist and Confucian practice: to watch the ten thousand things without being swept along by them. The music embodies this posture. It does not comment on what it sees. It simply sees.
In three sections, the piece moves from the act of withdrawal, through the quality of attention that withdrawal makes possible, to something that cannot quite be named — the particular peace of a mind that has stopped trying to arrive somewhere. Its structure is rigorous, its tone naturally serene.
Recorded by Mei Yueqiang. Part of the ongoing series presenting his complete surviving recordings.
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