Customer Reviews

COLD MOUNTAIN (Shambhala Pocket Classics)

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Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. He wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden the text with extraneous matter. His many translations from Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformly high quality, and are well worth having as they are books one often returns to.

What little is known of the eccentric hermit Han Shan will be found in Watson's brief, interesting and informative Introduction. The book then goes on to offer a selection of one hundred of Han Shan's 8-line poems which provide us with glimpses of the poet's life on 'Cold Mountain,' and his thoughts and feelings about reality, life, and the world in general. Here is a brief example, with my obliques added to indicate line breaks :

"Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter - / Yet no one travels this road. / White clouds idle about the tall crags; / On the green peak a single monkey wails. / What other companions do I need ? / I grow old doing as I please. / Though face and form alter with the years, / I hold fast to the pearl of the mind" (p.73).

The first line here reminds me of a famous haiku by Santoka Taneda, one of Japan's best loved poets and also a Zen-man like Han Shan. A translation of it will be found in John Steven's marvelous edition of Santoka, who translates:

"Going deeper / And still deeper - / The green mountains."

I think that both Han Shan and Santoka were getting at the same thing. Stevens comments: "Deeper and deeper into the human heart without being able to fathom its depth. . . ." ('Mountain Tasting,' p.37).

The human heart, yes, but also self, nature, time, reality, the mystery of existence, "the pearl of the mind," and, ultimately, the world of Buddha, or, for others, God. And deeper into the poems too as, to borrow the words of Robert Bly, "Baskets that Hold God."

Although Watson's 'Han Shan' is an early work, it's wonderfully readable and his translations are of a quality that put him pretty well on a level with US poet Gary Snyder, who has also done a translation of Han Shan's poems. They will be found in his book, 'Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems,' and readers might find it interesting to compare the versions of these two very different translators, one an academic and the other a Zen adept.

Both Watson and Snyder are excellent in their different ways, and either would serve the needs of anyone who hasn't yet had the good fortune to read Han Shan. Read him once and you'll love him and never forget him. He's a fount of wisdom and very human, and his poems can be read with enjoyment by anyone.

And if you like Han Shan, as I'm sure you will, take a look at Santoka as you'll almost certainly like him too. In Han Shan and Santoka we see life and truth as reflected in two very special sensibilities, and we can all learn a lot from both.

Details of John Stevens' book are as follows :

MOUNTAIN TASTING : ZEN HAIKU BY SANTOKA TANEDA. Translated by John Stevens. 126 pp. New York and Tokyo : Weatherhill, 1980 and Reprinted.

My first introduction to the poetry of Han-Shan, whose name means "Cold Mountain" in English, was through this collection of poems translated by Burton Watson. Of all the other translations of Han-Shan I have read, I still think Watson's is the best from a literary point of view. Watson has a clean and direct style of translation which compliments the simplicity of Han-Shan's verse wonderfully. The poems chosen for this collection touch on such subjects as the impermanence of life, the quest for enlightenment, and the simple enjoyment of living alone in the midst of Nature. Although Han-Shan was well read in Chinese and Buddhist literature, his poems are not dogmatic or inexcessible to the Western reader in any way. In fact, they have a freshness and immediacy that seems very modern.

I first read this Gem-like little book because Kerouac mentioned it in his _Dharma Bums_. I'm glad he did- this is one of the most profound and satisfying books that I've ever read. It is the book I tuck into my breast pocket when I'm totally fed up with civilization and just have to get away into the back country.

This is the finest example of the writings of the tradition chinese mountain man hermit. Yet, the chinese version of the hermit was most unlike the western pattern. These men didn't reject nature and the natural world to find the divine- they merged with it. These were men who could live life with an almost dionysian intensity complete with wine and wise cracks. These men could cut to the marrow of what is truly important in life. I'm sure old Han-shan must have driven Confusius and the imperial bureaucrats nuts....

The last poem of the 101 states: "Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house? They're better for you than sutra reading." I couldn't agree more.

this book deserves to be read by anyone interested in the outdoors or eastern poetry. it is striking, pensive, simple, and beautiful, while allowing for rich emotion and endearingly opinionated topics. the contextual notes are helpful, and are not so heavy as to turn the light volume of poetry into a textbook on history or literature. an easy read for anyone.

I was given this book while travelling in Nepal some years ago. It has become my most loved book.

What lies behind the words is such beauty, sadness and humour... true mind medicine for those who would be so daring as to go beyond the lonliness of solitude, to the world of Han Shan...

"When night comes I sing to the bright moon; at dawn I dance with white clouds."

After living in solitude for some time I really got a sense of the aching sadness in some of these poems, such as...

"I came here to sit on Cold Mountain and lingered here for thirty years.

Yesterday I went to see relatives and friends-- over half had gone to the Yellow Springs.

Bit by bit life fades like a guttering lamp, passes on like a river that never rests.

This morning I face my lonely shadow and before I know it tears stream down."

But above all I see Han Shan as a rebel who found his way to Cold Mountain, shunning and often making fun of the worldly life that he left behind. With regards to spiritual seekers he offers:

"Honey is sweet - men love the taste; medicine is bitter and hard to swallow."

This book is filled with jewels!

It's a nice little hand book. I wished for a more detailed Cold Mountain book.

I don't know Chinese. I know a little about Chinese Buddhism. But Han-shan and Watson have made these poem's familar: it's our condition.

Each poem is a neat little eight line chunk. Nothing elaborate here, just simple poetry for our simpler side. Given all the bloated religious teachers and poets I've read, this is a refreshing change. Try to imagine how long it might take you to come up with a similar brief wise poem. Then consider Watson only translated 100 of Han-Shan's roughly 300 poems. How cold was that mountain?

The great thing about Cold Mountain is that he is transparent to translators. Arguing the merits of one Cold Mountain translation against another is like comparing a Gudo Ishibashi 2.8 shakuhachi to a 2.9 Mujitsu shakuhachi by Ken LaCosse. Both flutes will get you "there." But the journey will be different.

The same is true of Cold Mountain. Snyder is as good as Watson is a good as Red Pine is as good as Henricks.

Or like Dogen translations...

why sink a straw that floats on the water, when the moon itself rides in ripples beside the straw?

A brilliant book. Beautifully translated by Burton Watson, but the real focus lies not with him, but naturally on the poems of Han-Shan, a Chinese poet and philosopher. Han-Shan's poems are truly wonderful, and thankfully devoid of the pretentiousness that belies much of the literature from that era. Highly Recommended.

a good comparison to use with gary snyders translation/paraphrase. brings out different nuances than snyder.