黃庭堅 ，字山谷，江西省修水縣人，其詩書畫號稱「三絕」，與當時蘇東坡齊名，人稱「蘇黃」，
Huang Ting-Jian, aka Huang San-Gu, born in Xiu-Shui County, Jiang-Xi Province, was an prominent artist of Sung Dynasty, a virtuoso of trio: poetry, calligraphy and painting, and enjoyed the same stature as his contemporary Su Dong-Po; both of them were equally famed as "Su-Huang"

黃山谷不止有文名， 秉性也至孝，他常親自為母洗滌溺器，就是後來做了官， 也不改其孝行。
In addition to the reputation of his versatility in arts, Huang was also known as a son of extreme filial devotion toward his mother. He often cleaned his mother’s bedpan even when he became a high-ranked officer.

黃山谷在中進士後，被朝廷任命為 蕪湖地方的知州 ，就任時他才二十六歲。
Huang was appointed the governor of Wu Hu county after having passed the examination which the Emperor would personally do the honors. He was onlytwenty-six of age then.

有一天，當他正在午寐時，做了一個夢， 夢見自己走出州衙大門，直來到某處村莊，看見一個老婆婆站在其門外的供案前，手持清香，口中喃喃自語，類似呼喊某人的姓名，黃山谷趨前一看，看見供桌上擺著一碗煮好的芹菜麵， 香味飄溢，黃山谷不自覺的端起來便吃，吃完後就走回衙府，

One day, when he took a siesta, he dreamed a dream that he had walked out the office into some villiage, and beheld an old lady standing before an altar in front of her house. With a joss stick in her hands and seemingly calling someone’s name, the old lady was murmuring something to herself. Huang stepped forward and saw a bowl of celery noodle of savory smell placed on the altar,
and he couldn’t help himself but ate the noodle unconsciously, thenreturned to his office.

等一覺醒來，夢境仍甚為清晰， 尤其奇怪的是，嘴裡還留有芹菜的香味，他心中雖然納悶，但並不以為意，只覺得是做了一場夢。
He could clearly remember the scene of the dream
after having awaken;peculiar enough, the smell of celery still lingered in his mouth. Though feeling a little bit baffled, Huang paid little heed to that dream, thinking that was nothing but a dream.
 等到次日午寐時，夢境又和昨日完全相似， 而且齒頰還留有芹菜的香
味，黃山谷不禁甚感訝異，
In the next siesta, he dreamed the same dream again, once more the scent of celery lingered in his palate. He was perplexed,
於是他遂起身步出衙門，循著夢中記憶的道路行去， 令他詫異的是，一路行
來，道路的景緻竟然和夢中的情景 完全一樣，
so he walked out the office, down exactly the same road that brought to his
mind from the dream, and more astonishingly, the landscape along the road was absolutely the same as that in his dream.

最後終於來到一處人家門前， 但門扉緊閉，黃山谷便前去叩
門，一位白髮的老婆婆出來應門，黃山谷問她， 這兩天是否有人在門外喊人吃麵之事。

 The road finally led him to a house, but the door closed. Huang knocked on the door, and a grey-headed lady answered. Huang then asked her if anyone out there calling someone to eat
noodle during this couple of days.

老婆婆回答說：「昨天是我女兒的忌日，因為她生前非常 喜歡吃芹菜麵，所以每年在她忌日時，我都會供奉一碗芹菜麵，呼喊她來食用！」
The old lady replied, "Yesterday was the anniversary of my daughter’s death. She was very fond of eating celery noodle when she was alive, so I would make one and call her to eat on the anniversary every year!".

 黃山谷問：「妳女兒去世多久了？」 老婆婆回答說：「已經二十六年
了！」
Huang asked, "How long has she died?". The old lady said, "It’s has been twenty-six years!".

黃山谷心想，自己不也正是二十六歲嗎？ 而昨天也正好是自己的生辰，於是更進一步問這婆婆,有關她女兒在生時的種種情形。
Huang reckoned that he was exactly twenty-six of age, and yesterday happened to be his birthday too; therefore, he inquired more about her daughter’s life.

 老婆婆說，她只有這麼一個女兒， 女兒在生時非常喜歡讀書，而且信佛茹素，非常孝順， 但就是不肯嫁人，後來在二十六歲時，生了一場病死了， 當死的時候，還告訴她說一定會回來看她！
 The old lady said she had this only one daughter, who had been an assiduous reader, a devout Buddhist and a strict vegetarian, and an obedient daughter, but remained unmarried all her life. Her
daughter died of sickness when she was twenty-six, and she vowed in her deathbed that she would surely come back to see her mother!

 等黃山谷進到屋裡，老婆婆指著一個大木櫃告訴他說， 她女兒平生所看
的書全鎖在裡頭， 只是不知鎖匙放到那裡去了，所以一直無法打開。奇怪的是，黃山谷那時突然記起了放鎖匙的位置， 依記憶果然找出鎖匙

When Huang was invited into the house, the old lady showed him a large wood coffer and said locked in there had been all the books her daughter had ever read, but the coffer was unable to unlock because she could not recall where the key was. It was strange that all of a sudden came into Huang’s mind the whereabouts of the key, and the key was there!

，等打開木櫃，在裡面發現了 許多文稿，黃山谷細閱之下，大吃一驚， 原
來他每次參加考試所寫的文章，竟然全在這些文稿裡， 而且一字不差。
Huang found many a copy of manuscript in the coffer when he opened it.  Upon careful perusal, he was dumbfounded to find that every piece of essay he wrote in various exams: county, provincial and imperial were all in there, and verbatim the same.

 至此，黃山谷心中已完全明瞭，這老婆婆就是他前生的母親
At this stage, the light suddenly dawned on Huang that the old lady had been his mother in his previous life;

，於是將老婆婆迎回州衙，奉養餘年。 後來黃山谷在州衙後園，建造一座亭園，亭中有他自己的刻像，並且自題石碑像贊曰： 「似僧有髮，似俗脫塵，做夢中夢，悟身外身。」

hence, he took her to the governor’s official residence to spend the rest of her life there. Later on, Huang built a pavilion in the back yard of his residence, and erected a sculpture of his image with an inscription carved on it, saying "like a monk with hair, like a
secular man without worldliness; searching for the subconscious of dreams, meditating on outer existence"

文學家袁枚，在聽聞這個故事後，不禁發出： 「書到今生讀已遲」 的感嘆。 意思是說像黃山谷這樣的大文學家，詩書畫三絕的人， 並不是今生才開始讀書的﹐前世已讀了很多書了。
Having heard of the story, Yuan Mei, a man of letters of Qing Dynasty, uttered a sigh of "it’s too late to read till this lifetime"
meaning a great writer, virtuoso of poetry, calligraphy and painting like Huang had not begun reading in this lifetime, but long before his previous life.

黃山谷 體會了轉世的道理，晚年參禪吃素， 曾寫過一首戒殺詩：我肉眾生肉，名殊體不殊；元同一種性，只是別形軀。苦惱從他受，肥甘為我須；莫教閻老斷，自揣看何如?

Huang then realized the truth of transmigration of the soul, and late inhis life he became a vegan and a believer of Zen. He had written a poem,exhorting people not to kill:
We are the creatures of flesh just like other animals, of the same flesh indifferent forms;stem from common origin, evolve into various shapes;fears and pains inflicted on others, greed satisfied to our stomach;don’t wait until the doomsday, make a judgment right now!

黃山谷 的故事說完了，很玄是嗎？也不是那麼玄的，有時候我們走在一條巷子裡，突然看見有一家特別的熟悉；
There went Huang’s story. Is it mystical? Not that hard to understand.  Sometimes we walked down an alley, unwittingly caught a house especially familiar to us.
有時候我們遇見一個陌生人，卻有說不出的親切；有時候做了一個遙遠的夢，夢景清晰如見一首詩、 一個古人，
Sometimes we came across a stranger, having inexpressibly intimate feeling toward him/her; sometimes we dreamed a faraway dream of a poem, an ancient figure,
感覺上竟像相識很久的知己； 甚至有時候偏愛一種顏色、一種花香、一種聲音、 卻完全說不出理由…… 人生，
just like some long-acquainted alter egos of ours. Even sometime we would partially favor a particular color, a floral scent or a special sound without a logical explanation.
不就是這樣偶然的嗎？每個人都站在自己的三生石上， 只是忘了自己的舊驚魂罷了。

Isn’t life so haphazard, the vicissitude full of chances? Everybody’s
rushing in his present life, but oblivious of where he is from.