近幾年來，我離開了喧囂繽紛的巴黎，搬到巴黎郊外的楓丹白露森林。我自己問自己這樣的選擇是不是有些志至先還了呢？結果因為抽離了我認為是“鬧市”的地方。我才似乎有些明白了，莊子為什麼稱：夢與覺兩者都是“真”的那種逍遙生活態度。
離開了我認為那是“鬧”的地方，進入一個我以為是靜的地方。只有體驗可以告訴你：“鬧”並不鬧；“靜”也非真靜。這之間沒有對立，而只是一個對等的關係。結果我每次都是很喜歡的進入我的“鬧市”，又很欣慰的返回我的靜地。2009年不也是一個世面上靜如冬季的森林，而人們心裏焦炙如地殼下的岩漿麼。熱正被冷孕育著。
年輕的時候，對自己的創作半信半疑。可還是拉緊韁繩，不管不顧的憑著一股倔強策馬狂奔。總覺得被一種內在的衝動驅策著，試圖掙脫另一種無形桎梏的束縛。我在“星星”時期的那些作品，都是在這種靈感中産生的。如“星星”參展作品《希望之光》（油畫）、《掙脫》（木板畫）。
今天看來，其實就是不想穿別人的鞋和襪子走路，不想活在別人的真理裏面。等到我這個不怕虎的牛犢，成了有奶的母牛後，記得十幾年前回國探親，有一天，和幾個有學問的朋友一起逛街，他們非要進書店，因為怕朋友奚落我沒文化，也跟著湊熱鬧，買回一本《莊子》。讀了一遍沒懂，就又憑著一股倔勁讀了幾遍，卻還是半懂不懂。奇怪的是像我這種從小被“文化大革命”嚇著了的人。本以為這輩子不可能與“文化”有什麼緣分了，卻居然因怕朋友奚落我沒文化，裝樣兒買來一本莊子的書後，歪打正著！我被他夢和旦只是對等關係的觀念，牢牢吸引住了。我堅信它是一種解釋生命源於何處的智慧。多少年來，我都若即若離的，時不時想嘗一嘗莊子所説的那種“栩栩然胡蝶(蝴蝶)也，自喻適志與”，是個什麼滋味？!
自從十三歲拿起畫筆，非要當藝術家不可，一恍也畫了三十年畫兒。現在家住山林邊的小村子裏，我最喜歡的是爬到山坡上的巨石上，觀日出，賞日落。
2009年，我想嘗試莊子所説的那種 “夢為蝴蝶也，自喻適志與”，是個什麼體會的，熱情又向我襲來 。於是我畫了一張“大蝴蝶逍遙圖”，一邊畫一遍想像那夢中的蝴蝶是真還是醒後的莊周是真，誰在夢誰呢？這第一幅畫一開始動筆，緊跟著第二幅畫就在腦海中動念了，我笑問：“這不正是‘方其夢也，不知其夢也’嗎？”真不知是誰把誰給夢出來了。就這樣一發不可收拾的畫開了。這“因”是做了許多年的蝴蝶夢，這“果”是畫了一年的逍遙蝴蝶。
每當我坐在山林的巨石上，看天看地看草木昆蟲。偶爾也有成群的鹿和野豬跑來跑去的。我真覺得，大自然和動物，植物，都好像我們生活中的導師，也早就穩如泰山，頗有耐心和毫無吝嗇的在那裏展示給我們一個：人類千百年來，以及其複雜的方式探尋的那個深不可測的神秘生命來源。很可能就是我們自己！
想像一下我們生活的世界是個萬花筒，大家都聚精會神在用一隻眼盯著萬花筒，他們看見的，只能是他們當時的心態驅使和希望的！其實萬花筒中萬物俱全，再怎麼玩命轉它，不想看的人，見到了“真相”也不認識。可“真相”不會因為人沒看見它，就不在那兒了。那要是個育盲人呢，不全世界全宇宙裏就剩他一個人活著了嗎？“真實”只是人們對什麼是真實的一種看法，或説是一種心態。跑的更遠的人，就堅信了他們的一種信仰。再經過人類千百年來集體的認可，傳播後，成為一種“絕對”的東西。每個人的見解都建立在他自己獨有的體驗上，世界因此變的五花八門了。大家都愛爭個“我的真理是唯一對的”。而莊子大就大在：他體驗到夢與旦是同等和統一的。誰的真相對他們自己而言都是對的，都是萬物與自己一體獨特的共振。
在進入2010年元旦那天，我又爬上了巨石，當時太陽正在下山。我想到了這一年我畫的那些逍遙的大蝴蝶，想像著它們正在追趕著太陽，請太陽回來吃元旦晚宴。這想像是那麼真切，我咯咯大笑起來，笑聲回蕩在巨石之間，回聲像猿猴在歌唱。突然一個我琢磨了許多年的問題：是什麼造成了人與人之間評判，防備的分離現象呢？一個答案涌到我的心中：“可能我們正在用我們不能從自己內部接受的東西，為武器來譴責別人。那麼只有在我們活出了所有的生活境況後，並且從這些境況中，找到了一個自己內在的平和後，才能夠去了解別人，並且不帶評判的，容許別人成為他們自己所是的！”
太陽下山了，我從石頭上一躍而下，覺得身輕如燕。這一夜，我與朋友們跳了一夜舞。2009年最後一天午夜子時，當時鐘敲響後，朋友們互相爭著擁抱親吻，並且像猿猴一樣嗷嗷直叫。大家還學著蝴蝶的樣子，翩翩起舞。
2010年拂曉，我睡著了以後，竟然夢見我們還在跳舞，並且在夢中我知道自己正在做“夢”！看來“夢”和“覺”不僅都是真實的，還是一體的。我起床，給一個吵翻臉多年不曾來往的朋友寫了一張新年賀卡，其中有一句寫道：“放開別人就等於放開自己，這樣別人和自己都將是輕盈和明亮的。”過了幾天，賀卡又出現在我的信箱裏，原來寫錯了地址，歪打正著。我自語；“你看應先原諒自己 ，才能平和的原諒別人。”這歪打正著的小小生活跡象，卻如此的發人深省！我又在另一張賀卡上寫的；“我愛你”！
對這個展覽我希望分享的是：生活是禮物！活著真開心！
文/ 李爽
2010年1月
Free – the deep joy of detachment
In recent years, I left the colorful hustle and bustle of Paris and moved to the nearby Fontainebleau forest. I asked myself if I made this choice just to go back to my sources. Finally, since I left what I considered as the “bustling life” of the city, I seemed to begin to understand what Zhuangzi meant when he said that dreaming and being awake are both “true”, and to grasp his own choice of a carefree life.
When you leave a place which you consider noisy for one that you find quieter, only experience can tell you that “noisy” is not noisy at all and “quiet” is not really quiet. The two are not opposed but rather reciprocal. I do enjoy going to “noisy” places actually, but I feel very comfortable and happy to come back to my “quiet” place as well. Last year was as quiet as a winter forest, but people were boiling inside, like magma under the earth’s crust. Heat was really nurtured by the cold.
When I was young, I was not very confident about my creativity. But I held the reins tight, and without paying much heed to anything else, I spurred my horse and galloped ahead. I always felt an inner impulse strongly urging me to break free from another invisible force that was reining me in. During my “Stars” period, it was that impulse that inspired me. Such is the case of “A ray of hope” (oil on canvas) and “Breaking free” (wood print), both from that period.
Retrospectively, I think I did not want do wear other people’s shoes and socks nor to walk on trodden paths, and I did not want to live in someone else’s truth. After I grew up from a young filly fearless of tigers into a quieter mare, I remember I went back home to see my relatives about ten years ago, and one day, as I was shopping with some learned friends, intellectuals, they insisted on going to a bookstore; and just out of fear that they would think me uncultured, I followed them, for the fun of it, and I bought one book: “Zhuangzi.” The first time I read it I did not understand anything but, stubborn as I am, I read it over again several times, and I still only half-understood it. What is strange is that in my youth I had been so frightened by the “Great Cultural Revolution,” I thought I would never get along with “culture’ in my life; I went nonetheless into that bookshop – only for fear of being thought uncultured by my friends – and I bought that Zhuangzi book, which was just a pretence: it was all just too many coincidences, a stroke of luck. Then, Zhuangzi’s notion that “dreaming” and “awareness” are reciprocal things gradually pervaded in my mind. I really believe that it is a wisdom that can explain the origin of life. For all these years, I never stopped wanting to taste what it was like to be ‘fluttering like a butterfly, doing what it pleased me to do.”
Since I first took to painting when I was thirteen, I wanted to be an artist and nothing else, and I have been painting for thirty years. Now that I live in a village near the forest, what I like most is going to the woods and climbing on the rocks, to watch the sun rise or set.
In 2009, I wanted to try Zhuangzi experience, to “dream I was a butterfly, and do what I pleased.” So I painted a “Big carefree butterfly” and while I was painting I kept imagining that very butterfly in Zhuangzi’s dream: was he real or was he Zhuangzi after he woke up? Who dreamt of whom after all? As soon as I started to paint that painting, the next one was floating in my mind, and I was thinking: is this not really like in Zhuangzi: “Was it just a dream? Or didn’t I know it was one?” Can’t say really who dreamt of whom. That’s how these paintings came about, the “cause” is because I dreamt so many years of butterflies, and the result is that for one year I painted carefree butterflies.
Every time I’m sitting on a big boulder in the forest, I look at the sky and the ground, at the grass and the trees, and at the insects. Occasionally, a bunch of deer or boars rushes by. I really feel that nature and the animals and the plants are our life guides, that they are our unswerving base, that they are showing us patiently, with generosity, the mystery of the origin of life that man, since he has been around for thousands of centuries, has been trying to pierce. Perhaps it’s only us, after all!
When we imagine our world, it’s like a kaleidoscope, every one is engrossed looking through that kaleidoscope with one eye, and all they can see is their present state of mind and their hopes! But the kaleidoscope is such that, however one turns it around, those who do not want to see will not know the truth even if they see it. But just because people don’t see it doesn’t mean that the “truth” doesn’t exist. If there was but one blind man, wouldn’t he be the only one being left living on earth and in the universe? “Reality” is but one view that men have about reality, or an attitude. Men who push things further create a faith. All the knowledge accumulated by men over the centuries has become, when transmitted, a “certainty.” Every man’s opinion is made up from is experience, and that’s what makes the world so diverse. Everybody argues that his “truth is the only one that’s right.” And the greatness of Zhuangzi is that he has experienced that “dreaming” and “awareness” were reciprocal and, as it were, one same thing, the two sides of the same medal. Everybody’s reality is just; it is but a resonance between oneself in particular and the universe.
On New Year’s Eve before the beginning of 2010, I climbed once again on that boulder and watched the sun set. I thought about that year I spent painting “carefree butterflies” and I imagined them trying to catch up with the sun and invite him to come back for the evening party. The image was so vivid that I laughed out loud, and the sound of my mirth echoed between the boulders like a bunch of singing monkeys. Suddenly a question that I had been pondering over for years came up to my mind: what makes us judge each other and causes the phenomenon of defensive separation? An answer rose in my heart: “Perhaps we use what we cannot accept within ourselves as a weapon against others. Then, only after we have lived out our experiences and found therein our own inner harmony, can we understand others rather than judge them, and accept them as they really are!”
The sun went down behind the horizon, and as I leapt down from the boulder I felt myself as light as a swallow. I spent that night dancing with friends. The last night of 2009, as midnight bell struck, we hugged each other and exchanged kisses, honking like monkeys. And we all danced like butterflies.
When I woke up on the first morning of 2010, I dreamt that we were still dancing, and in my dream I knew I was dreaming! It looked as though “dreaming” and “being awake” were not only real but the same thing. I got up, and wrote a Season’s Greetings card to a friend with whom I had quarrelled and had not had any relations for years, with this sentence: “Forgiving others is like forgiving ourselves: it makes all of us brighter and clearer.” A few days later the card came back in my mailbox: I had sent it to a wrong address. Another strike of luck! I told myself: “You see, you must forgive yourself before you can find harmony and forgive others.” Life gives you sometimes little signs such as this one that make you ponder a lot! I wrote another card with the words: “I love you:”
What I want to share with this exhibition is this: “Life is a gift! Enjoy it!”
Li Shuang
January 2010