Final stories and thoughts on Road To Heaven.

Imagine a time where going into the mountains was a way to seek promotion. Porter reports that in Stephen Owen's book about 8th Century China, if you went into retreat, and then got a promotion, they called that the "Changnan shortcut". 

I spent my summers near Hayesville North Carolina and these mountains were known for being a hotbed of survivalists and right wing wackos. I saw a bumper sticker, "Heston is my president" meaning the head of the NRA was their real president. The grocery stores say, "American Owned" like there is some great foreign grocery conspiracy.

My friend who likes the wilderness drives onto remote public lands and camps out of his car. He has a special tent attached to the end of his car.

Porter ends going through the 8 Immortals.

I certainly think this is a monument book in terms of Chinese culture. I'm not sure if it has any great insights, though Porter said he hoped it would inspire people to practice more intensely and a not just lead comfortable lives. Something like that. Anyway, quite a wonderful book to read on many levels.

Among The White Clouds

With the documentary in the background while I read, I can hear the birds on the mountains. I can hear the different way people talk in Chinese. When he talks in English, I take a break from reading and listen. It's usually about his attempts to find someone. Sometimes I take a break and read the text translations of what people are saying. They talk about Buddha nature, the nature of the mind, the struggle for existence. Some of the hermits can't read. They meditate. You can see them gathering stuff to eat. Getting water. Taking down laundry. Making tea. Cooking a meal. Eating. Chanting to Buddha statues. There are some young monks with an older monk. A woman alone. All sorts of scenarios. Endlessly varied, unique.

Among The White Clouds. I can't believe this is free on YouTube, but it is. Quite amazing.

I have a fantasy of living by mountains filled with Buddhist hermits, but I can understand their language, and I bring them food and whatever they need. The Chinese tradition of mountain hermits is as old as time, but unique.

One of the things you notice is their humility. They're just simple people carrying on. America has such a hype culture that it's hard to imagine Americans talking that way, but I bet some would. What you feel is great devotion.

Road to heaven

 

I guess Porter, or Red Pine, translates poetry, so he's open to the poetry of life. 

I'm getting more interested in Tao. Last night I listened to a podcast with Benjamin Hoff. The emphasis on nature and natural, in harmony with Buddhism, is interesting. 

It's sad the hermits retreat further into the mountains to get away from the tourists, who get superficial teachings.

Chapter 6 starts out talking about Buddhism coming to China and there's been a recent discovery where they think some statues are from 2,200 years ago. 2,300 years ago in Pakistan. 

My theory is that Buddhism swept the globe but died out because it's such a hard and subtle path, but there was a crazy awakening during the Buddha's life, and for 100's of years following it. What an amazing thing. 

Chapter 6 has some good discussion about the differences and integration of Buddhism into Taoism. 

Road To Heaven by Bill Porter

Bill Porter had an interesting childhood. His father was a farmer, then bank robber. He got pardoned because his sisters were waitresses where the governor used to dine, and they talked him into a pardon. Then he became a hotel millionaire. The money was frozen in a divorce, and Porter went into the military and then used the GI Bill to educate himself, but he lost interest, somehow ended up in Taiwan as a monk for 3 years, and then did his travels to write this book.

He is also known as Red Pine, that's his art name, or pen name. 

You can watch the movie if that's your speed, link below. I like the book myself, but I'll graze the movie some more. I've watched it some in the past. 

So it's an adventurous book. He's going out looking for Chinese hermits. In China there is a tradition of respecting hermits. I don't think we have that tradition in the USA, to my knowledge. Anyway, he goes from place to place asking about hermits, until he finds some, presumably. Don't want to give anything away, the book builds the tension about finding some of these guys. 

The hermit tradition goes way back, and some early dynastic choices involved hermits, so the culture historically respects hermits. Hermits were sometimes shamans. Hermits were sometimes Taoist. I took a class on Taoism in college, and I read their basic texts. I didn't know that it originally about the waning and the waxing of the moon. I'm tempted to dig out my classic texts. I feel the idea of proportion, yin and yang, effortlessness, and being natural are very appealing to me. That's not all that Taoism is about but that's a big part of it.  

Visiting Taoist temples, Porter said they were organized like Buddhist temples. Supposedly there is Chʻüan-chen Taoism and Cheng Yi Taoism, which is more a lay practice. I learned about Taoism and Chinese culture, how the monasteries fared through the cultural revolution and changes in politics of China.

One of the things I don't like about reading the 1993 book is that it seems like all the terms have changed. Maybe he just simplifies Chʻüan-chen to Chuan Chen.

Links:

Eight Immortals of Taoism.

He Xiangu, the one female in 8 Immortals

Interview of Porter (YouTube)

Post Magazine profile:

video Amongst The White Clouds

video Chinese Monks (seems to be a different documentary)

book review quote: Porter describes a farmer grinding green rind off of walnuts, the steep and slippery green rocky ascents to hermit hideaways, misadventures with suspicious police. We share a meal of corn gruel and potatoes here or a bowl of noodles and a pot of tea there. One old hermit tells Porter about his few planted vegetables, of gathering wild plants, of coming down once every couple of years. Why do you live there? asks the author. "For the quiet," comes the answer. "Zen monks like quiet."

There's information in Tricycle "Porter, moreover, seems too enamored of his hermits to challenge them with the kind of difficult question that can elicit unusually penetrative responses. One wishes that he’d asked them whether, by entering a hermitage, they hadn’t lost as well as gained-for instance, the friction as well as the fellowship occasioned by others and seemingly so essential to self-knowledge."

And Lion's Roar. 

Ancient Ginkgo tree like Lao Tzu's?

Lao Tzu is spelled Laozi now.