The white clouds are mindless, they never come to rest;
now you have built a “cloud-nest” to live among the clouds!
You built for ten years, until clouds filled the mountain;
then the clouds kept you there, and you have never left.
You made a nest of clouds—but the clouds know nothing of this:
the doors and windows are made of clouds, clouds for beams and pillars.
In this nest there is nothing at all, except for clouds;
the tables, mats, pillows and mattress—all are made of clouds.
People say you are nesting in a bundle of clouds:
but you're not nesting in the clouds, the clouds are nesting in you!
Who is right? Who is wrong? Who can really say?
Clouds are you, you are clouds—nothing is impossible.
All those generals of Cloud Terrace, with their incomes of thousands:
like a flash of lightning through ten thousand miles of blue clouds!
Human wealth and nobility are like floating clouds,
how much better to nest in clouds, in the few rooms of this home.