Cold Mountain

Han Shan, or "Cold Mountain," was one of China's most distinctive and peculiar characters in the hermit-monk, mountain recluse tradition.  I first learned of him by reading Gary Snyder's translations in a reprint of one of his early volumes of poetry, "Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems."  

Gary is a worthy figure in his own right, having grown up in the be-you-ti-full Pacific Northwest, an early and lifelong mountaineer, and probably the best exponent in the West of the Native and Buddhist approach to the environment and the earth.

I saw Gary read poetry a couple of times at the old Elliot Bay Bookstore down in Pioneer Square in Seattle.  He always struck me as the real deal, decked out in his work boots, jeans, and flannel or plaid wool shirt.  In another, that uniform might have smacked of affectation, but it really was the Seattle/Portland dress of functionality in the chilly Pacific NW.

Anyway, Gary did some nice translations.  He was working on them in the fall of 1955 when he and Jack Kerouac met.  Later, in the spring of '56, he and Jack shacked up, quite literally.  They shared a run-down zen hojo shack on a hillside in the hills of Marin, in a eucalyptus grove below a horse pasture.  Jack was studying Buddhism and Gary, would immortalize both in his later novel, "The Dharma Bums," and was preparing to go spend the summer as a fire lookout in the North Cascades.  Gary was preparing to head to Japan to become an actual Zen monk.  He didn't return permanently to the US until 1969.

Han Shan left the world and lived for thirty years in the Tien Tai mountains, specifically on Cold Mountain, in a large open cave.  We can quote him from one of Gary's translations as saying, "Who can escape the world's ties and sit with me among white clouds?"

Others in the West have since been drawn to Han Shan and his crusty wild wisdom.  This whimsical video contains short interview clips with an assortment of Western poets and scholars, narrated mostly by Bill Porter, and I thought it would be an interesting introduction for the neophyte to this unique and unusual world of the mind, heart, mountains, poetry and China's enduring fascination with its own most intransigent characters.

Kudos and a karmic gift to anyone who watches the video to the end:  you'll be incarnated in the future as a gifted poet recluse in the mountain peaks of China.  Hope to see you there.