In Buddhist thought, “nirvana” is the stated spiritual goal. It comes from a Sanskrit word which means “blown out,” as in a blown-out lamp. One who has reached nirvana has transcended the worldly cycles of desire and fear which motivate human action and cause suffering.
In John Balaban’s translation, we can find a double—perhaps even a triple—entendre on the word “springs”: “spring” as in the natural water source; “spring” as in the season in which the poem is set; “spring” in the verb form, which injects an associative jolt of liveliness. It is important to note that this language analysis only draws meaning out of the translated poem, not Ho’s original work.
"echoes like a wave..."See in text(Spring-Watching Pavilion)
Though we cannot know whether the “echoes” of the bells appear in Ho’s original poem, Balaban’s word choice bears significance. The "echoes" evoke the repetitious quality of the bell's sound as it might reverberate in waves across a town or swath of countryside, an effect which draws the reader more deeply into the world of the poem. The word also ascribes a pervasive quality to organized religion. If the bells represent organized religion, the echoes represent the wide-reaching, nearly inescapable influence of religion.
