#hanshan

Han-shan, Cold Mountain. 100 poems by the T'ang poet Han-shan

Taos, NM following the season's first significant snow fall. Photo: Steve Bundy (Nov 5, 2022)  :: [Scott Horton]

HanShan Monk Flute Melody (寒山僧踪)

"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" 

- Zen Hermit Hanshan (9th Century AD), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (by Red Pine, 2000), p39)

When people look for the road in the clouds The cloud road disappears The mountains are tall and steep The streams are wide and still Green mountains ahead and behind White clouds to east and west If you want to find the cloud road Seek it within

Needing neither to eat or piss!

Who came along with his drill

And bored us full of these nine holes?

Morning after morning we must dress and eat;

Year after year, fret over taxes.

A thousand of us scrambling for a penny,

We knock our heads together and yell for dear life.

Men ask the way through the clouds,

The cloud way’s dark, without a sign.

High summits are of naked rock.

In deep valleys sun never shines.

Behind you green peaks, and in front,

To east the white clouds, and to west –

Want to know where the cloud way lies?

It’s there, in the centre of the Void!

Hanshan (Cold Mountain), 9th century