Couplet Graphic

I must say that I really like this couplet; the lack of formal antithetical balance between the last seven characters of each line gives the couplet a sense of liveliness and freshness that it might not otherwise have, and the meaning is quite profound indeed. The couplet itself comes from the Dafo Monastery located in the city of Zhangye in Gansu Province (the one with the large reclining Buddha.) It is not particularly easy to translate either since at the very end there is an allusion to a wonderful story called "The Yellow Millet Dream," the Chinese characters for "yellow millet" are:

Yellow Millet in Chinese

(If you can find these characters in the couplet to the left, click on them to learn more; and below is the text of the couplet.)

天 地 同 流 眼 底 群 生 皆 赤 子
千 古 一 夢 人 間 幾 度 續 黃 粱

(UTF8 coded Chinese)