The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
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The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
by Authors:
Hanshan , Red Pine , John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld
Released: October, 2000
ISBN: 1556591403
Paperback
Sales Rank: 27,275
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List price:
$17.00
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$11.90
(You save: $5.1)
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| Book > The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain > Customer Reviews: |
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Average Customer Rating: 
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain >
Customer Review #1:
Better than the last
I have read the other translations. Red Pine not only got it right, he also got all the hidden messages. He went to the cave. This book is the Cold Mountain book. For readers that bought any other of these books, get this. I wish this book was a NY Times best seller. Reads well and is complete
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain >
Customer Review #2:
A Masterful Translation in a Beautiful Volume
It seems inevitable that something will always be lost in translation. At least I thought this was true until I purchased this volume. Not only does Red Pine stay true to the beauty of Han-Shans verse, but the underlying Zen essence comes through loud and clear. I have heard it said of the Tao Te Ching that you can spend a day reading the entire work and a lifetime trying to truly understand it. This is also true for these poems. Short verses of simple construction that manage to capture something so vast. No, not capture. Illustrate. In several lines the universe is displayed before us, if only we pause to look. This edition is as much a must for any seek to understand Asian religion as it is for those who love Asian poetry.
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain >
Customer Review #3:
Red Pine grasps Cold Mountain.
Twelve hundred years ago, Chinese recluse-poet Han Shan ("Cold Mountain") "fled to the woods to dwell and gaze in freedom" (poem 26), where he also wrote the 307 poems collected here "on trees and rocks and walls" (p. 9) around the cave where he lived. In 1974, while living in a Taipei monastery as a Buddhist monk, Bill Porter (a.k.a. "Red Pine") began translating Cold Mountains poems.Red Pine breathes new life into Cold Mountain. "I enjoy the simple life," Cold Mountain writes in poem 224, "between dark vines and mountain caves/ the wilderness has room to roam/ with white clouds for companions/ theres a road but not to town." It is easy to appreciate Cold Mountains verse not only for its "spiritual honesty, poignancy, and humor" (p. 15), as Red Pine observes, but also for its rich, natural imagery. White clouds cling to dark rocks (poem 1), and old pines cling to crags (poem 256). Cicadas sing (poem 300). Yellow leaves fall (poem 300). "My mind is like the autumn moon/ clear and bright in a pool of jade" (poem 5).
In a recent interview, Red Pine compares Chinese hermits to "a mountain spring that brings fresh water down into town" (Tricycle, Winter 2000, p. 69). Cold Mountain is a good teacher, and his poems offer insightful lessons. He writes: "Trust your own true nature" (poem 2). "Rock sugar and clarified butter/ mean nothing when youre dead" (poem 8). "The moon is the hub of the mind" (poem 10). "Silence thoughts and the spirit becomes clear/ focus on emptiness and the world grows still" (poem 82). "Drop a ball of mud in water/ and behold the thoughtless mind" (poem 86). "Retiring to my hut I accept white hair" (poem 122). "The world is full of busy people/ well-versed in countless views/ blind to their true natures" (poem 132). "People who wander among clouds/ dont have to buy the hills" (poem 219).
Red Pines collection will become an well-travelled path on your bookshelf to contemplative, Cold Mountain. (It is easy to understand why Jack Kerouac dedicated his DHARMA BUMS to Cold Mountain in 1958.) For those interested in meeting other Chinese hermits, I recommend Porters ROAD TO HEAVEN: ENCOUNTERS WITH CHINESE HERMITS (1993). For some contemporary poetry reminiscent of Cold Mountain, I recommend David Budbills recent MOMENT TO MOMENT (2000).
G. Merritt
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The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain >
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