Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits [Paperback]

Bill Porter (Author), Steven Johnson (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

Bill Porter (Red Pine) trekked through China's remote Chungnan Mountains in search of hermits. Lessons of spiritual wisdom emerge from his interviews with more than twenty male and female hermits. "A stupendous corrective to modern American Zen practice". -- Jim Harrison, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

"(A) fascinating book". -- Yoga Journal

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From 1966 to 1976 the malevolent rage of the Chinese Cultural Revolution struck a devastating blow to all religions in China, destroying countless temples and shrines that had stood for centuries and forcibly returning thousands of monks and nuns to lay life. Bill Porter had been told that the venerable hermetic tradition in China had also succumbed, but he went looking anyway. What he found, Taoist and Buddhist monks and nuns living in huts and caves deep in the mountains of central China, is more than a revelation, it is a glimmer of hope for the future of religion in China.

From Publishers Weekly

Porter, a Hong Kong-based writer whose previous books were published under the pen name Red Pine ( The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma ), lived in a Taiwanese monastery for three years in the 1970s and later translated works of some Chinese hermits long admired for their virtue. When travel to China opened up in the late 1980s, Porter began to search for hermits who might have survived under years of communism. His story is unusual, but his "encounters"--actually, brief interviews--produce not subtle observations but statements of gnomic profundity: " . . . the Tao is empty. It can't be explained." Still, Porter showed undeniable bravery as he trekked through the Chungnan Mountains in central China to interview more than 20 male and female hermits. Some hermits are circumspect about politics, having suffered under the Cultural Revolution, while others, like an 85-year-old monk who had lived in a cave for 50 years, are oblivious to the political changes. Porter's historical and literary reflections show sensitivity to his subject, but this book seems aimed only at those interested in such spiritual quests. Some of the photographs are starkly spectacular.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Mercury House (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562790412
• ISBN-13: 978-1562790417
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #800,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The hermit's life is not all warm and fuzzy, October 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits (Paperback)

Unlike most books on Taoism, Buddhism and Zen this book is not philosophically cute, it doesn't warm the mind, and it's photographs don't make you wish you were on the next plane to China. This book just is. It taught me that being a Chinese hermit is sitting on a dirt floor in a cold, damp, stone hut with a leaky roof and snow, not rose petals, blowing around outside. Where other books left me with images of silk robes, and sitting cross-legged on bamboo mats in beautiful pagodas, this book slapped me in the face with a muddy, wet rag. Even the pictures were in black and white and although the hermits radiated an inner beauty and peace, their surroundings looked so bleak and inhospitable. I got a bang out of their disdain and boredom with tourists, and I now respect these wise and wonderful hermits all the more for the physical harshness of their living conditions and the clarity of their minds. As it was with one brilliantly in-tune hermit: "While he was talking, the gruel boiled over, and the watchdog was invited in to clean it up". He then concluded his fascinating discourse with the author with these words, "I'm just a mountain man, you know. I just string words together. They don't necessarily make any sense. How about some hot peppers in your potatoes?" For my little, insignificant mind anyway, raw Zen and raw Taoism.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Startling and hopeful, May 22, 2001

By 

A. Hogan (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits (Paperback)

Bill Porter,a.k.a. Red Pine is a wonderful tranlator of poetry. His collected songs of Cold mOuntain and Stone House are cherished companions. When I came upon this book, it intrigued me: hermits STILL living in China? Well Red Pine and his friend Steven Johnson go forth into some extraordinary parts of China{including a heavily fortified area near the main nuclear works of China} to find some astonishing people. Some of the temples were still functioning,most had been decimated by Maos cadres during the Cultural revolution. Still the air of hope is there. Old Taoists' lving alone for years upon years,almost completely disassocaited from the turbulence of the past 50 years. Mostly it is a remarkable story of hope,of faith and belief held together through some of the most horrific suffering ever inflicted on a civilization. The cover Photograph , of an aged nun praying is haunting and quite beautiful, as are most of the photos which accompany the text. Bill Porter lets these remakable people do the talking, and does not posture or place himself unduly into the stories{which is refreshing in and of itself} Highly recommneded!

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Trail of the Tao, September 17, 2003

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits (Paperback)

What a great book! An American expatriate living at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan takes advantage of the lifting of travel restrictions to see if China's legendary tradition of hermits still endures. He arrives in 1989, during the student demonstrations in Tienanmen Square. The officials assure him that the decadent hermits have been completely wiped out long ago. In spite of this, the scholar presses inland to the heart of China. He finds himself drawn to the Chungnan mountains- the mighty spine of the dragon, the bones of China itself, dividing the Yangtze country in the south from the Yellow river country to the north. He doesn't realize that this is where shamanism first arose in China, if not in the human world. This was where the Immortals lived. This was where Lao-tzu wrote the Tao te Ching. Here, he finds his hermits, Buddhist and Taoist, young and old, male and female. I think that the best part in the entire book was when one ancient hermit, who had been living in the mountains since 1939, asked the author, "Who is this "Mao" that you speak of?"

After his initial contact with Chungnan hermits (he would return) the author heads back down into modern China. He finds that the Tienanmen Massacre has occurred.

Upon reading this book I got a sense that the true bones of China were untouched by Communism, as they will no doubt be left untouched by Corporatism. I found this book to be inspiring- you could not invent a piece of fiction this good. However, I also found myself wishing that the author had brought that ancient hermit back with him to face down the butchers of Tienanmen.

One man centered in the Tao can do much....