Hánshān

I love this book. I may have re-read it more than any other. If you're interested in Buddhism or Taoism, or simple, moving poetry with a spiritual bent, try this. The Burton Watson translation is my favorite. For translation-nerds, here's an interesting article comparing a number of Cold Mountain translations: http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2014/12/han-shan-and-cult-of-translation.htm....

"Han Shan" means "Cold Mountain", and we don't know the actual name of the Chinese recluse who wrote show more these poems. The poems indicate that he was at one time married and once lived in "the capitol", and at some point went away to reside in seclusion on Cold Mountain. He most likely lived during the period of the 6th-9th centuries. He composed more than 300 poems and apparently wrote them on "rocks". This collection has 101 of them (although the title says 100).

"I think of all the places I've been,
chasing from one famous spot to another.
Delighting in mountains, I scaled the mile high peaks;
loving the water, I sailed a thousand rivers.
I held farewell parties with my friends in Lute Valley;
I brought my zither and played on Parrot Shoals.
Who would guess I'd end up under a pine tree,
clasping my knees in the whispering cold."

The linked article describes him as "a rascal", and he certainly makes fun of those caught up in material desires, or full of their own importance, including religious figures. Here's a predecessor to Shelley's Ozymandias poem:

"Often I've heard how the Emperor Wu of the Han
and the First Emperor of the Ch'in before him
delighted in tales of immortals and spirits
and tried in vain to prolong their lives.
Now their golden towers are broken,
their palaces have vanished away,
while the grave at Mou-ling and the tomb of Mount Li
today are a wilderness of weeds."

There are poems about the mountain and its seasonal changes; his trips to visit people and places; the shortness of life; the difficulties of life on the mountain, including loneliness; his views on the uselessness of greed, corruption and pride; and the quest for enlightenment and peace.

"Thirty years ago I was born into the world.
A thousand, ten thousand miles I've roamed,
by rivers where green grass lies thick,
beyond the border where the red sands fly.
I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,
I read books, I sang songs of history,
and today I've come home to Cold Mountain
to pillow my head on the stream and
wash my ears."

Throughout he celebrates the spiritual that is found in the mundane, and the need for each of us to find his or her own way.

"People ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain? There's no road that goes through.
Even in summer the ice doesn't melt;
though the sun comes out, the fog is blinding.
How can you hope to get there by aping me?
Your heart and mine are not alike.
If your heart were the same as mine,
You could journey to the very center!"

This is a hugely influential book that is still widely read centuries later. It first came to westerners' attention in Kerouac's Dharma Bums. If the poems above strike a chord with you, you'll want to get your hands on this one. Han Shan would probably laugh at the idea of a "rating", but this book of his poetry certainly warrants five stars. show less

This is a beautiful edition from Copper Canyon Press of the poems of Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and a few poems of two of his companions. Han Shan was a medieval Chinese poet, often considered part of the Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist tradition. In my opinion he owes more to the Taoists, but gets his morality from the Buddhists, and morality is the subject of a lot of the poems. He is often classified as a wilderness poet, but he is more of a satirist. Many of his poems are scathing denunciations of show more society, including Buddhist and Taoist religious society.

The poems are short, but the book is long, containing 307 poems by Han Shan, 49 by Shih Te, and four by Feng Kan. Han Shan's style is simple and straightforward, lyrical at times and rhetorical, even invective, at others. For a wilderness poet, it doesn't demonstrate love of nature so much as love of simple living. For a religious poet, he is remarkably non-pious. He also has a sense of humor, which tempers his satire. Like much Chinese poetry, his is very allusive, which makes Red Pine's footnotes most helpful. The translation is line by line, sticking close to the original (as far as my limited Chinese could detect from the Chinese text on facing pages). Red Pine's style is clear and concise, without affectations.

Han Shan is considered (at least by Americans) as a classic Zen poet, but to my ear he lacks the heavy symbolism and deliberate mystification I often associate with Zen poetics. I appreciate his freshness, vigor, humor, and austere advice. show less

A poem in this translation warns:

"You want to learn to catch a mouse?
Don’t take a pampered cat for your teacher.
If you want to learn the nature of the world,
don’t study fine bound books.”

So given what an elegant little hardcover this is, you should keep your expectations in check. But there's one entry that I really loved (Han Shan VII) and several others that made it worth reading. Some express a bitter reality in a moving way (“Why’s my heart always, always spinning? … a show more grief like love, unbearable”); others succeed through lovely descriptions of nature:

"Han Shan has so many strange, well-hidden sights
…
Moon shines in the dripping water;
wind brings the very grass alive.
Freezing trees flower with snow,
dead, bare trees leafed out in cloud."

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I didn't enjoy the poems very much, but the I found their origin very interesting. I mostly feel I should learn more about the circumstances/culture/other literature of the time and place before I really 'get' these poems. I had a feeling that what sounded vaguelly preachy and cliche to me could in fact have been revolutionary and new back then. Will have to do research when I have time!