Reading Like Li Bai: Calm, Not Wild — The True Art of Reading calm-read-li-bai-en

 When Li Bai is mentioned, most people think of the "Poet Immortal," the "Wine Immortal" — the defiant figure who declared, "The Son of Heaven summons me, but I refuse to board his boat." Yet beneath those verses of drunken revelry lies another dimension of Li Bai's spiritual world: a profound inner calm. And this is precisely the quality most neglected by readers today.

Hainan Hui's song Taking Wine to the Ends of the Earth reinterprets Li Bai's spiritual legacy. It sings not of unrestrained abandon but of a relaxed willingness to "leave all those trivialities behind," a composure that allows one to "calmly and peacefully drink a cup of wine" (read the original article). This shift in perspective offers contemporary readers an important insight: when we read Li Bai, we should not only read his wildness — we should read his peace.

Why is Li Bai's "calm" harder to emulate than his wildness? Because wildness is external and easy to see, while inner peace requires genuine cultivation. Li Bai could write "A time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves; I'll set my cloud-white sail and cross the surging sea" precisely because he spent countless solitary moments in dialogue with his own heart. When exiled, he still composed "My light boat has passed through ten thousand layered mountains" — sustained not by bravado but by serene acceptance of life's rises and falls. This acceptance is the core of "calm and peace."

Contemporary reading culture is steeped in anxiety. We rush to finish books, rush to extract takeaways, rush to summarize a four-hundred-page tome in three sentences at book club. This anxiety has spawned countless speed-reading methods and audiobook apps, squeezing out what is most essential — quiet time spent in the company of words.

What would Li Bai-style "calm and peaceful" reading look like? First, letting go of utility. You do not read to write a book report, to have material for social gatherings, or even for "self-improvement." It is pure, purposeless immersion. Just as Li Bai drank alone beneath the moon not to compose a poem but simply to share a cup with the moon — the poem was only a natural overflowing of his state of mind.

Second, it means giving yourself permission to "not understand." If something escapes you today, don't rush for an answer. Hold it in your heart and let it ferment, like wine. Perhaps three years later, reading another book, the answer will come on its own. Li Bai surely encountered many passages he initially failed to grasp — but he had the patience to let understanding arrive in its own time.

Finally, calm and peaceful reading means not comparing yourself to others. There is no need to envy someone who read a hundred books in a year, no need to feel anxious that your reading list is shorter than someone else's. Reading has never been a competition. It is a long, solitary walk that belongs to you alone. Some walk fast, some walk slow. Neither is right or wrong — only what suits you.

Du Fu wrote in his Song of the Eight Immortal Drinkers that Li Bai could "produce a hundred poems with a single gallon of wine." But let us not forget — those hundred poems were not poured out by the wine. They were accumulated through years of reading, walking, and thinking. The wine was merely a catalyst. What truly did the work was a heart long since settled and stilled.

Takeaway: Li Bai's poetry makes us look up at the stars, but his "calm and peace" keeps our feet on the ground. In this age of information overload, learning to read with Li Bai's serenity — unhurried, uncompetitive, unseduced by shortcuts — may be the finest gift a reader can give themselves. Not every cup of wine needs to become a poem. Sometimes, simply drinking quietly is enough.

(read the original article)