A favorite form of poetry of mine have been those created by the hermit poets in China and Japan. Many of their poems portray the simple life of the hermit, high up in the mountains in a small hut or cave, free of the cares of the mundane world. However, it isn't always that Edenic as we learn from some of their poems.
Shut up among the solitary peaks,
I sadly contemplate the driving sleet outside.
A monkey's cry echoes through the dark hills,
A frigid stream murmurs below,
And the light by the window looks frozen solid.
My inkstone, too, is ice-cold.
No sleep tonight, I'll write poems,
Warming the brush with my breath.
-- Ryokan --
In a dilapidated three-room hut
I've grown old and tired;
This winter cold is the
Worst I've suffered through.
I sip thin gruel, waiting for the
Freezing night to pass.
Can I last until spring finally arrives?
Unable to beg for rice,
How will I survive the chill?
Even meditation helps no longer;
Nothing left to do but compose poems
In memory of deceased friends.
-- Ryokan --
The above poems are from Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf
trans. John Stevens
No. 6
The mountains are so cold
not just now but every year
crowded ridges breathe in snow
sunless forests breathe out mist
nothing grows until Grain Ears
leaves fall before Autumn Begins
a lost traveler here
looks in vain for the sky
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain) --
No. 172
I'm poor alas and I'm sick
a man without friends or kin
there's no rice in my pot
and fresh dust lines the steamer
a thatched hut doesn't keep out the rain
a caved-in bed hardly holds me
no wonder I'm so haggard
all these cares wear a man down
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain) --
No. 6 and No. 172 are from
The Collected Poems of Cold Mountain
trans. Red Pine
note: Grain Ears falls fifteen days before the
summer solstice and Autumn Begins occurs
45 days after the solstice.
The world can be a cruel place, even for enlightened ones.
Showing posts with label HAN SHAN aka COLD MOUNTAIN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HAN SHAN aka COLD MOUNTAIN. Show all posts
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Han Shan (Cold Mountain) a question
#197
Is there a self or not
is this me or not
this is what I contemplate
sitting in a trance above a cliff
between my feet green grass grows
and on my head red dust settles
I have even seen pilgrims
leave offerings by my bier
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
edited and translated by Red Pine
This is a strange one from Han Shan. The poem has him meditating up in the mountains, a common enough occurrence, regardless of culture, religious tradition or continent. But then, there's those last two lines--I have even seen pilgrims/ leave offerings by my bier. Does this suggest that he is dead but still wondering about a question asked long ago by the Buddhists, and is now taken up by some contemporary psychologists.
Those last two lines bring poems by another poet, Emily Dickinson, to mind. She also posits an awareness after death. However, I don't remember that asked any questions; it seemed as though her reaction was a calm and detached acceptance.
Is there a self or not
I know what my answer would be, and as usual I'm from another era, one that's thousands of years before those early Buddhists and some contemporary psychologists.
Is there a self or not
is this me or not
this is what I contemplate
sitting in a trance above a cliff
between my feet green grass grows
and on my head red dust settles
I have even seen pilgrims
leave offerings by my bier
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
edited and translated by Red Pine
This is a strange one from Han Shan. The poem has him meditating up in the mountains, a common enough occurrence, regardless of culture, religious tradition or continent. But then, there's those last two lines--I have even seen pilgrims/ leave offerings by my bier. Does this suggest that he is dead but still wondering about a question asked long ago by the Buddhists, and is now taken up by some contemporary psychologists.
Those last two lines bring poems by another poet, Emily Dickinson, to mind. She also posits an awareness after death. However, I don't remember that asked any questions; it seemed as though her reaction was a calm and detached acceptance.
Is there a self or not
I know what my answer would be, and as usual I'm from another era, one that's thousands of years before those early Buddhists and some contemporary psychologists.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Han Shan: solitude
One reason why I admire Han Shan (Cold Mountain) is his humanity. He comes across as very human, and this is one that reveals him as being human, and not some mystic saint.
Sitting alone I keep slipping away
far off with the cares of my heart
clouds wander by the mountainside
wind rushes out the valley
gibbons swing from the trees
birds call through the forest
time slips past my temples
yearend finds me old with regrets
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain) --
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
Red Pine: trans and ed.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
A Minute Meditation
"keep in mind the tailorbird
at home on a single branch"
Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
Red Pine, translator and editor
Saturday, June 13, 2015
William Butler Yeats: A birthday
William Butler Yeats
Born: June 13, 1865
Died: January 28,1939
William Butler Yeats is another of those poets of whom I have heard much but sadly have read very little of his poetry. However, of the little that I have read, the following is one of my favorites, and probably one of his most frequently anthologized.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall l have some peace there, for peach comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
-- William Butler Yeats --
If you find this somewhat familiar, the following quotation from Yeats may help explain why:
"I had still the ambition," he wrote, "formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little trickle of water and saw a fountain in a shop window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From the sudden remembrance came my poem 'Innisfree,' my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music."
Thoreau begins Walden Pond with the following words:
"WHEN I WROTE the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again."
And, for those readers who are interested in something a long time ago in a place far, far away:
I chose a secluded place to live
Tientai says it all
gibbons howl and the stream fog is cold
a view of the peak adjoins my rush door
I cut some thatch to roof a pine hut
I made a pool and channeled the spring
glad at last to put everything down
picking ferns I pass the years left
-- Han-shan --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans by Red Pine (Bill Porter)
Han-shan is translated in English as Cold Mountain.
Tientai: as the result of the popularity of a 4th century work, Mount Tientai became symbolic of a "remote and magical wilderness."
Han-shan is a legendary hermit poet who lived during the T'ang Dynasty, possibly in the 9th century. Aside from several stories and brief references to him by others, little is known of him today. He lived on Cold Mountain and took that as his name.
Among the many themes that seem inborn in the human psyche is the desire to escape civilization and live by oneself in remote places. It's found in an American and an Irishman of the 19th century and a hermit poet from a thousand years earlier in 9th century China. I don't doubt that it can be found in other cultures and in other eras.
Born: June 13, 1865
Died: January 28,1939
William Butler Yeats is another of those poets of whom I have heard much but sadly have read very little of his poetry. However, of the little that I have read, the following is one of my favorites, and probably one of his most frequently anthologized.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall l have some peace there, for peach comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
-- William Butler Yeats --
If you find this somewhat familiar, the following quotation from Yeats may help explain why:
"I had still the ambition," he wrote, "formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little trickle of water and saw a fountain in a shop window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From the sudden remembrance came my poem 'Innisfree,' my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music."
Thoreau begins Walden Pond with the following words:
"WHEN I WROTE the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again."
And, for those readers who are interested in something a long time ago in a place far, far away:
I chose a secluded place to live
Tientai says it all
gibbons howl and the stream fog is cold
a view of the peak adjoins my rush door
I cut some thatch to roof a pine hut
I made a pool and channeled the spring
glad at last to put everything down
picking ferns I pass the years left
-- Han-shan --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans by Red Pine (Bill Porter)
Han-shan is translated in English as Cold Mountain.
Tientai: as the result of the popularity of a 4th century work, Mount Tientai became symbolic of a "remote and magical wilderness."
Han-shan is a legendary hermit poet who lived during the T'ang Dynasty, possibly in the 9th century. Aside from several stories and brief references to him by others, little is known of him today. He lived on Cold Mountain and took that as his name.
Among the many themes that seem inborn in the human psyche is the desire to escape civilization and live by oneself in remote places. It's found in an American and an Irishman of the 19th century and a hermit poet from a thousand years earlier in 9th century China. I don't doubt that it can be found in other cultures and in other eras.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Han shan or Cold Mountain: a poem
Han shan was a hermit poet who probably lived sometime during the ninth and tenth centuries. "Han shan" means cold mountain in Chinese, which is the name of the mountain where he resided. His poems show a strong Taoist and Buddhist influence, and he may have been a monk at some point. His poems were only collected after his death by someone who went looking for him and found his poems on trees, rocks, and walls of a nearby temple and nearby villages.
Today, according to one account, Han shan is ignored by scholars and critics, but his poems are found in very many temples and shrines throughout China.
People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don't reach Cold Mountain
in summer the ice doesn't melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here
-- Cold Mountain --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans. Red Pine
At first I thought the difficulty was purely physical. Cold Mountain is a difficult place to reach, according, at least, to the first four lines. However, the last four lines suggest that the real difficulty may not be physical but psychological or even spiritual. That brings me to ask if "Cold Mountain" is a place or a state of mind.
Today, according to one account, Han shan is ignored by scholars and critics, but his poems are found in very many temples and shrines throughout China.
People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don't reach Cold Mountain
in summer the ice doesn't melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here
-- Cold Mountain --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans. Red Pine
At first I thought the difficulty was purely physical. Cold Mountain is a difficult place to reach, according, at least, to the first four lines. However, the last four lines suggest that the real difficulty may not be physical but psychological or even spiritual. That brings me to ask if "Cold Mountain" is a place or a state of mind.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and some like-minded poets
#17
Hundred-foot trees produced by Heaven
get sawed into giant planks
unfortunate building timber
gets left in a hidden valley
its heart stays strong despite the years
its bark falls off day after day
if some astute person took it away
it still could prop up a stable
-- Han-Shan (9th century?) --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans and edited by Red Pine
"Kwang-tsze was walking on a mountain, when he saw a great tree with huge branches and luxuriant foliage. A wood-cutter was resting by its side, but he would not touch it, and, when asked the reason, said, that it was of no use for anything, Kwang-tsze then said to his disciples, 'This tree, because its wood is good for nothing, will succeed in living out its natural term of years.'"
-- ChangTzu --
Han Shan refers to the "unfortunate" building timber left behind. It should have been chopped down and turned into something useful for humans. Why? Is a tree's only value that of being useful to humans? Doesn't the tree have value in being a tree?
ChangTzu is a legendary Taoist sage, second probably only to LaoTzu in his importance in the Taoist ethical system. He seems to think differently about the tree. Since it was fortunately not useful to humanity, it is able to live "out its natural term of years."
Is that what's important about the plants and animals that precariously share this planet with us? If they are not useful, then they have no value in themselves. It seems to me that in this immense universe, there may be other life forms, but chances are that life forms found on this planet are unique and unlikely to be found anywhere else, just as life forms found on other planets will also be unique and one-of-a-kind. Moreover, it seems unlikely that we will find any life forms in our own solar system; again, if some are found, they will not be similar to those of earth. Again, that points out the significance of life in all its variety found here on earth: it is important in itself and this is far more meaningful than merely being useful to us. If humans are of value in themselves, then I would argue so are those life forms we share this planet with.
This, however, is a side issue from the original theme of this post, which is a lament, in a sense, for those beauties that blossom unseen or dwelt in untrodden ways, or at least so I thought it was. Now. . .I don't know.
The Wild Honey Suckle
Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by:
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.
Smit with these charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died--nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
-- Philip Freneau (1752-1832) --
from The Norton Anthology of American Literature
I think that Freneau in the first three stanzas stays with the flower, but read that last stanza again--
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
--especially the last four lines. From the Rubaiyat, 1st edition, Quatrain XLVII--
"Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less."
The following is a stanza from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." It also talks about beauties that blush unseen and "waste its sweetness on the desert air." These unfortunate flowers "waste" their sweetness because there's no human around to appreciate it. From what I understand, flowers did not develop their odors to benefit humans but to attract pollinator which would help to insure the next generation of these flowers. It's attractiveness to humans is secondary and, frankly, unimportant to the flower. It has its own agenda, which doesn't include humans.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
-- Thomas Gray (1716-1771) --
from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
We move now to a human who lives in an isolated area. She too is ignored by all except for the poet. And she, too, must die, unknown by all, and missed only by the poet, an unfortunate circumstance. I wonder if the poet ever thought to ask Lucy how she viewed her situation.
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love;
A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
-- Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
-- William Wordsworth (1770-1858) --
I began this simply by reading a poem by Han Shan, a ninth century Chinese poet, and then remembering poems with similar themes by two English poets and a US poet from the 18th and 19th centuries, over a thousand years later. But then, something else struck me, and I think I've wandered off from my original thought. I think I shall come back to this point again.
Hundred-foot trees produced by Heaven
get sawed into giant planks
unfortunate building timber
gets left in a hidden valley
its heart stays strong despite the years
its bark falls off day after day
if some astute person took it away
it still could prop up a stable
-- Han-Shan (9th century?) --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans and edited by Red Pine
"Kwang-tsze was walking on a mountain, when he saw a great tree with huge branches and luxuriant foliage. A wood-cutter was resting by its side, but he would not touch it, and, when asked the reason, said, that it was of no use for anything, Kwang-tsze then said to his disciples, 'This tree, because its wood is good for nothing, will succeed in living out its natural term of years.'"
-- ChangTzu --
Han Shan refers to the "unfortunate" building timber left behind. It should have been chopped down and turned into something useful for humans. Why? Is a tree's only value that of being useful to humans? Doesn't the tree have value in being a tree?
ChangTzu is a legendary Taoist sage, second probably only to LaoTzu in his importance in the Taoist ethical system. He seems to think differently about the tree. Since it was fortunately not useful to humanity, it is able to live "out its natural term of years."
Is that what's important about the plants and animals that precariously share this planet with us? If they are not useful, then they have no value in themselves. It seems to me that in this immense universe, there may be other life forms, but chances are that life forms found on this planet are unique and unlikely to be found anywhere else, just as life forms found on other planets will also be unique and one-of-a-kind. Moreover, it seems unlikely that we will find any life forms in our own solar system; again, if some are found, they will not be similar to those of earth. Again, that points out the significance of life in all its variety found here on earth: it is important in itself and this is far more meaningful than merely being useful to us. If humans are of value in themselves, then I would argue so are those life forms we share this planet with.
This, however, is a side issue from the original theme of this post, which is a lament, in a sense, for those beauties that blossom unseen or dwelt in untrodden ways, or at least so I thought it was. Now. . .I don't know.
The Wild Honey Suckle
Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by:
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.
Smit with these charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died--nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
-- Philip Freneau (1752-1832) --
from The Norton Anthology of American Literature
I think that Freneau in the first three stanzas stays with the flower, but read that last stanza again--
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
--especially the last four lines. From the Rubaiyat, 1st edition, Quatrain XLVII--
"Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less."
The following is a stanza from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." It also talks about beauties that blush unseen and "waste its sweetness on the desert air." These unfortunate flowers "waste" their sweetness because there's no human around to appreciate it. From what I understand, flowers did not develop their odors to benefit humans but to attract pollinator which would help to insure the next generation of these flowers. It's attractiveness to humans is secondary and, frankly, unimportant to the flower. It has its own agenda, which doesn't include humans.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
-- Thomas Gray (1716-1771) --
from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
We move now to a human who lives in an isolated area. She too is ignored by all except for the poet. And she, too, must die, unknown by all, and missed only by the poet, an unfortunate circumstance. I wonder if the poet ever thought to ask Lucy how she viewed her situation.
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love;
A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
-- Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
-- William Wordsworth (1770-1858) --
I began this simply by reading a poem by Han Shan, a ninth century Chinese poet, and then remembering poems with similar themes by two English poets and a US poet from the 18th and 19th centuries, over a thousand years later. But then, something else struck me, and I think I've wandered off from my original thought. I think I shall come back to this point again.
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