Han-Shan was a curmudgeonly Zen mystic/philosopher born in the early 700′s, and is one of China’s most revered poets. His name translates to “Cold Mountain.” Han-Shan lived in a cave at the base of Hanyen, (Cold Cliff), in Chekiang Province and wrote his poetry on stone slabs and tree trunks. Three hundred of the poems survived and are available in translation by Red Pine in The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Dave Johnson’s excellent, comprehensive review in The Asian Reporter inspired me to buy the book.
Like many hermits, Han-Shan did not live totally without human contact. He sometimes badgered local monks and even shared his poetry with pilgrims and local villagers. Johnson reports Han-Shan even had a couple of close friends, “Big Stick (Feng-kan) and Pickup (Shih-te), two other eccentric fellows who joined the poet to become the Three Hermits of Tientai, still popular in China for their devotion to each other and cavalier attitude toward the rigidity of religious dogma.” My kind of hermits.
The last three lines of this Han-Shan poem resonate with me - the crux of hermit psychology:
People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don’t reach Cold Mountain
in summer the ice doesn’t melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here
