May you find something to help you on your journey.
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
e.e. cummings
This poem was published in Complete Poems 1904-1962.
Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.
Wendell Berry
This poem is contained in New Collected Poems.
Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
– slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Author: Gary Snyder
Rating: 4/5
Read: 4/18, 2/19
Who Should Read: People interested in Zen, poetry, Chinese thought
Hanshan, or “Cold Mountain”, is one of my favorite Chinese poets (alongside Stonehouse). Hahshan was (supposedly) a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived in isolation in the wilderness. The poems attributed to him sparkle with a disdain for civilized life and carry a Zen and Taoist bent.
Cold Mountain Poems is a small collection poems translated by Gary Snyder, who does a wonderful job translating Hanshan’s words and feelings. Included are some of my favorite poems from this collection.
Gary Snyder on why he was qualified to translate Cold Mountain’s poems:
I had been a mountaineer and forestry laborer as well as a bookish scholar for several years already, and simply could draw on a wide experience of events and words and observations in finding ways to represent the Han-shan imagery. I also regularly made a practice of internalizing and visualizing the taste of the whole scene – cold, wet, rocky, lonely, or whatever was called for – to the point that I could write it out with some sense of presence. This doesn’t always work by any means, but it is exciting when it does. It reaches across time and space.
On the interest in such poetry:
At least for non–East Asians, they touch us not because of the invocation of a hermetic ideal or solitary asceticism, but because of the almost joyful rejection of materialism and the absolute pleasure in being in the great world “with a sky for a blanket,” aware of living a life apart from the value-assumptions of mainstream people.
There is a deep strain of non-ideological dubiousness about the large materialistic goals that are the official “dream” of developed-world people and certain others worldwide.
Here are some of my favorite poems from this collection.
In a tangle of cliffs I chose a place –
Bird-paths, but no trails for men.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds clinging to vague rocks.
Now I’ve lived here – how many years –
Again and again, spring and winter pass.
Go tell families with silverware and cars
“What’s the use of all that noise and money?”
Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: There’s no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn’t melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog
How did I make it?
My heart’s not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You’d get it and be right here.
Clambering up the Cold Mountain Path,
The Cold Mountain Trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide cree, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there’s been no rain.
The pine sings, but there’s no wind.
Who can leap the world’s ties
and sit with me among the white clouds?
Spring-water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white
Silent knowledge – the spirit is enlightened of itself
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness
Cold Mountain is a house
Without beams or walls.
The six doors left and right are open
The hall is blue sky.
The rooms all vacant and vague
The east wall beats on the west wall
At the center nothing.
Borrowers don’t bother me
In the cold I build a little fire
When I’m hungry I boil up some greens.
I’ve got no use for the Kulak
With his big barn and pasture –
He just sets up a prison for himself.
Once in he can’t get out.
Think it over –
You know it might happen to you.
If I hide out at Cold Mountain
Living off mountain plants and berries –
All my lifetime, why worry?
One follows his karma through.
Days and months slip by like water,
Time is like sparks knocked off flint.
Go ahead and let the world change –
I’m happy to sit among these cliffs.
Some critic tried to put me down –
“Your poems lack the basic truth of Tao”
And I recall the old-timers
Who were poor and didn’t care.
I have to laugh at him,
He misses the point entirely,
Men like that
Ought to stick to making money.
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How many have set themselves up as gatekeepers over the years? They can be found blocking access wherever you turn: God, education, business, sports.
Beware of everything which puts an obstacle between you and God.
— Leo Tolstoy
The best approach is to avoid the gate altogether, if you can. There aren’t many truly fixed rules in this game of Life. Why go through the gatekeeper if you can just go around the gate?
You must remain alert as you tread this path. Gatekeeping is a form of power, and the gatekeepers are not keen on losing control.
Most importantly, make sure that you do not act as your own gatekeeper, blocking your own path to success. It’s easy to think that we are not ready, not worthy, not able. We easily hide from direct experience and attainment, preferring to read about what we want in a book instead.
Feel yourself talking to God. Don’t read the book – read your soul.
— Ralph Waldeo Emerson
It’s a Good Thing™
that dogs don’t have egos
I would have
created a monster by now
Complement a man too much
and his ego will teach him that
others are beneath him
Instead my dog adores me
who is obviously
the greatest master
he could ever have
A reflection from my last day as “not-a-father”: It’s interesting that we have a word for “unmarried man” (bachelor), but no word for “a man without kids”.
Our languages are complex. We have been creating words for a long time. I am amazed that so many symbols and ideas have not yet been captured within our languages.
