The Emerald Dance: How Trees Sing in the Himalayan Imagination
In his meditation cave, Longchenpa composed the inspiring piece found in "Zangdok Palri" for practitioners dwelling in the mountains. The text describes how the emerald trees perform a swaying dance, while vines extend their branches like arms reaching out, as if to welcome arriving guests with the words, "Is there not joy!" This passage is attributed to Lungchinpa Tsultrim Gyaltsen (ཀློང་ཆེན་པ་；1308-1364).
Within the context of biography and Daoist poetry, the bamboo grove appears to be an ideal backdrop for depicting spiritual practice. Upon "འདི་དོན་མཐོང་ནས་ད་ནི་ནགས་སུ་འགྲོ་" (Observing and entering the forest), he views the mountain forest as a gallery for cultivation, with the Bodhi wisdom mind serving as the artwork for contemplation. At the locality known as Flowers and Two Tigers, mountains and flowers, two deer, and two tigers together constitute the practice realm imagined by Long Qinba.
Within Buddhist cosmology, sacred tree forests occupy a central place, appearing across all layers of the universe as ornaments that offer both scent and fruit. The wish-fulfilling jewel represents heavenly trees, just as the Bodhi tree represents wisdom and enlightenment. Meanwhile, bamboo is often described in scriptures as the "body of no-mind," yet Daoist poetry suggests another interpretation: a being that relinquishes attachment to the ego.
In the previous article, we examined how South Asian culture shaped “tree worship” and Buddhist sacred trees. In vol.2, “The Song of Life on the Big Tree,” tree bark was used to craft holders for scriptures—including palm leaf manuscripts—while wood shavings were turned into writing pens. For centuries, the wisdom of the ages was kept safe within these wooden holders. The “Woodcut Board,” an 18th-century artifact at the New York Rubens Museum, is also on view. Woodcut boards and printing houses are the two ultimate destinations for wise men in the land of the hidden, and they still live in them.
In Tibetan regions, the belief that trees merge celestial essence with cosmic elements renders ancient trees particularly sacred. Their indigenous 'soul tree' (བླ་ཤིང་) and 'biography tree' (རྣམ་ཐར་སྡོང་ཆེན་) also shaped the significance of trees in art, especially as life-force bearers, in addition to the South Asian system of tree worship. Better preservation of large-tree veneration is found in the Himalayan forests of the west and south, such as the Nyingchi area.
The woodland surrounding the big tree is an element of the natural worship centered on mountain gods, while in specific contexts the tree itself may be a primordial ancestor deity—a medium that once held importance in the local divine system yet is now gradually disregarded.
In later Buddhist traditions, the natural hierophany found in mountains and forests was linked to the "forest practitioners" of South Asia—particularly the eighty-four great achievers—thereby turning these wild settings into ideal grounds for meditation and spiritual exercise. The Benzhuo Bird is regarded as the sovereign of the heavens. vol.3 What can we learn from trees?
In this atypical Tibetan medical tree diagram (རྩ་རྒྱུད་སྡོང་འགྲེལ་), the central figure is the Maitreya Buddha situated in the Gelug tradition's "Maitreya faith palace," rather than the Medicine Buddha. The diagram comprises two trunks: the left trunk denotes the causes of health in humans, and the right trunk denotes the causes of illness, in line with the left-good, right-bad principle. These illness causes are subsequently subdivided into nine branches and sixty-three leaves.
In Tibetan medicine, the balance of three essential elements—"lung" (རླུང་), "spleen" (མཁྲིས་པ་), and "bacon" (བད་ཀན་)—is fundamental, and their imbalance in the body results in the classification of diseases into two types: hot disorders and cold disorders. Within a typical tree metaphor diagram, these elements are designated through color coding, with blue assigned to "lung" (རླུང་), yellow to "spleen" (མཁྲིས་པ་), and white to "bacon" (བད་ཀན་), using distinct hues for branches and leaves to aid in classification.
The use of tree metaphors to illustrate medical concepts had already flourished in an earlier period, possibly arising from indigenous knowledge traditions. In contrast, the eighty medical thangkas now commonly seen were produced and assembled under the direction of Sangye Gyatso (1653-1705), the Fifth Dalai Lama's successor in political matters.
Scholars still debate whether the 12th-century figure Yuthog Yonten Gonpo actually lived during the Tibetan empire. In the 14th and 15th centuries, as Tibetan medicine reached its golden age, folk tree metaphor diagrams multiplied. The 18th-century Tibetan medical master Be Lotsawa Ngawang Kunchab once noted that this method was not of divine origin but rather the distilled knowledge of the snow land sages, and that Yuthog Yonten Gonpo had given it wide circulation.
While it is common to refer to the two schools of medicine from the golden age of Tibetan medicine as the 'Southern and Northern Schools', this is fundamentally incorrect. According to strict classical texts, they should be called the Su School (ཟུར་ལུགས་) and the Jang School (བྱང་ལུགས་). As for the tree metaphor diagrams, they were not fully standardized in art history until the official version during the time of Sangye Gyatso.
In classical medical thought maps, the practice of representing nature’s principles through tree metaphor diagrams is a wisdom that remains usable across centuries. The Tree of Therapeutic Principles comprises three main trunks: diet, daily routine, and medical and external treatments. The first two trunks emphasize preventive and health-boosting measures, while the latter two branches pertain to medical treatments.
vol.4 Trees between reality and imagination In Buddhist art theory, trees can be used as metaphors for the bodies of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas: delicate and soft trees signify female deities, whereas tall and sturdy trees denote spiritual masters. Additionally, the presence of trees in images both imparts particular religious meanings and possesses its own special 'beauty of trees'.
The depiction of trees in Tibetan art is addressed in Denzang Pencuo's "The Mirror of Colored Painting Techniques," which notes that "trees have various colors, can represent various forms, and can manifest various emotions." Across the traditional painting schools, rendering trees is included to differing extents as a foundational exercise, and in accomplished works, the artist's temperament and fervor are often discernible through the portrayal of trees, grass, and stones. Within the diverse painting traditions of Tibetan regions, the Karma Gadri school stands out for its notably superior treatment of trees.
The three works mentioned above belong to the later period of the Karma Gadri painting school and are aesthetically stunning pieces of art. Within the Karma Kagyu painting school, most artists follow the Gelug tradition, and their focus on portraying that tradition’s great achievements originates in the sect’s history. Because written records are scarce, artists enjoy broad imaginative freedom, which lets them shift those achievements from South Asia to the mountains and forests of Kham.
Attributing the natural landscapes of the Karma Gadri painting school wholly to an imitation of East Asian aesthetics is a biased perspective held by some researchers. As the polymath Sidu Qoigijonae (1699-1774) observed, "One can take the beauty of trees from the sacred realm of India, the land of Han, and what one sees in Tibet, and paint them in one's own way." Even though these artists come from the same school, their styles and themes differ despite similar compositions.
The scenery stays silent; the painters are the ones who speak. Artists residing in a place often immerse themselves completely in their surroundings—Tibetan painters, for instance, are routinely asked to study every detail around them. Without experiencing Tibet's extraordinary beauty firsthand, how could one know that Tibetan artists have already established themselves as observers of a pure land? The paradise ordinary people seek actually exists in the trees and stones that surround them.
Translated from Sorang Wangqing's blog, this article describes how the beauty of a momentary glance at a tree is beyond words. Rongzompa (རོང་ཟོམ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བཟང་པོ་; 1012-1088) was a prominent treasure revealer and scholar of the Nyingma school. Some scholars additionally think that he served as a translator for Marpa Lotsawa.