COLD MOUNTAIN

"Cold Mountain" is a film portrait of the Tang Dynasty Chinese poet Han Shan, a.k.a. Cold Mountain. Recorded on location in China, America and Japan, Burton Watson, Red Pine, Jim Lenfestey, and Gary Snyder describe the poet's life and tell poems.
A trickster, Han Shan wrote poems for everyone, not just the educated elite. A man free of spiritual doctrine, it is unclear whether or not he was a monk, whether he was a Buddhist or a Taoist, or both. It is not even certain he ever lived, but the poems do.
Directed by Mike Hazard and Deb Wallwork, the music is by Gao Hong and animations are by John Akre. For more, visit www.thecie.org

[@meetontheledge1380]

Kerouac dedicated The Dharma Bums to Han Shan (what an impact that short novel had upon a certain 17 year old, just on the verge of taking off, what with all the rail riding lore and his vision of a ''rucksack revolution)! ''Japhy Ryder'' fulfilled all the foretold promise, I am reminded. ''If you visit any hermit in China, this is the reception you will receive- nothing but everything they have''. That made my old eyes burn so intensely that I had to spread a little ''water'' to ease them. I don't read fiction or any Western literature these days (excepting Blake, of course). But one can take only so much of Suttas and learned commentaries and so I dug out my moldering copy of The Dharma Bums this afternoon. Hours latter, I search out ''Han Shan'' on YT. What a treasure and blessed synchronicity. Metta to all beings and an extra heaping helping to the one who uploaded this addition to my (jealously exclusive!) ''favorites'' cache!

[@michaelhazard]

Blake, Han Shan, and Kerouac are brothers.

[@oktg91]

"no roll of the immortals bears their names"

[@alexkalish8288]

What a treat - Red Pine and Dr watson together. Gary I met in san francisco at a talk decades ago - It's like they brought Bach, Mozart and Dylan together for a concert. Butterfly woman has the smile of an angel with perfect teeth, rare in China. This is a gem without price and yet free. Too bad Arthur Waley Isn't alive or my teacher John Blofield ...How wonderful... Bravo -

[@Liliquan]

"Butterfly woman has the smile of an angel with perfect teeth, rare in China." I don't even know where to start with such garbage.

[@BigBunnyLove]

I fuckin love the silence between the wordz

[@danielalexandermclachlanga3781]

smoke for cedars to wave, ash , a blanket for earth, fire burns away prayer , "needing no answer", says " in-between"

[@chrisbasile]

I like this film, I like these guys, thank you for sharing.

[@is9828]

I was just reading a poem by Han Shan ending in "He's been here ten years unable to return completely forgotten the way by which he came" when I found this movie.

[@MALKooTH]

Han Shan- The Best Poet

[@mangalarobertwatling9168]

Thank you for this. Red Pine, and through him, Han Shan, the other Han Shan, Bodhidharma, Huineng and so many others, have been companions of mine for a while. Seeing this and the video about his travels among the hermits have given my practice a new dimension, a new clarity. Love to Cold Mountain and Butterfly Woman. And to B.P. aka R.P.

[@michaelhazard]

You're welcome.

[@mangalarobertwatling9168]

Wow! I made that post a year ago. Forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me. Good to hear from you. Sadhu. Anumodami.

[@blackbird5634]

"How could a person without wisdom recognize him?" In my experience, children are ready to accept that people are not always what they seem, that someone can be a raggedy, weather beaten old man, and a great and powerful wizard, like Gandalf in The Hobbit. Not that Han Shan was a wizard, but his merit as a follower of the path was/is great, and this would be clear to a child.

[@DilbagSingh-ox8li]

Absloute slap on my sleeping self, yes black bird yes, child only a child can see that ,open spacious embracing welcoming all possibilities, ah what a curse to have eyes so overcrowded with stolen wisdom eating the light thoroughly seeing only the shadow nither moon nor sun, slap me more and keep slaping dear it's like reviving the dead .

[@DilbagSingh-ox8li]

Love you dear love you

[@PK-re3lu]

This is great. I love Han Shan. How I wish I were up on the mountain with him right now! Hopefully, we'll survive this lockdown in one piece. Be well.

[@poetryjones7946]

Yes, among white clouds! 🙏🏼🌹

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍

[@dudeonthasopha]

As someone from MN the xcel energy center popping up was not something I expected.

[@blainesnow1476]

Fantastic documentary - thank you so much for posting this and to all those who participated in making it. A few of my favorite moments are 1) the old Chinese man singing out at 20:00, 2) the Chinese monk striking the gong, and 3) Jim Lenfestey's appreciation of cicadas singing, and just his deep appreciation for all poetry. I've had Red Pine's Collected Poems of Cold Mountain at my North Cascades retreat cabin for many years... Deep bow.

[@michaelhazard]

You're welcome. Your praise feels good.

[@hammerhead6937]

fascinating. Perhaps in my next life,

[@Kaliashdevi]

This is a comment for your other video in conversation about Zen. From living for 18 years in the remote high Himalayas in Buddhist areas, and the lower jungles with Yogis, it seems that so much materialism and corruption have set in that finding true renunciation and simplicity is like finding a needle in a haystack. Take away all the comforts and what effect will that have on the mind? Live empty handed and then see what cravings and desires arise. Monasteries in the remote Indian Himalayas are education places for boys who leave seeking a material life. I have come across grasping and pornography, lack of true hospitality, many stories... I could rave on about this but in every cult teaching - reaching out to the new-age movement - find a pure simple heart and you have found the Holy Grail.

[@enterthevoidIi]

Two things are worth pointing out here. Majority of people practicing there do it not because they want but because they don't have a choice, because of tradition and their parents. The same as with Abrahamic religions. Another point is that going to famous and so-called sacred places to practice is not better then going to your garden or toilet to practice, it's all the same. Travelling far and wide will not get you anywhere.

[@lizafield9002]

If you found the answers in other people, it wouldn’t be the path Han Shan found. The fact that you find crags and inhospitable rocks of a world who can’t hand over the right Way, is probably a gift.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 I´ve really found that simple pure loving heart IN MYSELF !

[@Kaliashdevi]

@@AL_THOMAS_777 Precisely

[@Kaliashdevi]

@@enterthevoidIi I agree to a certain point. The choice for the young boys is nourishing food and a good education. Then they leave in their early 0's. they would not get that staying at home. I have lived in these regions for years and know and spoken with families etc. Wrong; living in these regions shows us a lot

[@msjacob1234]

What a beautiful find! I've loved Han Shan's poetry since I was a teenager. Thank you for sharing.

[@michaelhazard]

You're welcome. Your enthusiasm feels good.

[@J0hnC0ltrane]

Fiji me poor fun all day. Ty

[@albaniajuarez6940]

Gracias! Mi corazón está lleno al mirar estas vidas.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍

[@jimmckay7379]

Wonderful video. Thanks so much for this!

[@pizzadesushi0000]

very cool

[@susanstanich2588]

Beautiful video - thank you!

[@tyu346]

I really enjoy to watch your documentaries are full of light.

[@michaelhazard]

Xie Xie, gracias, thank you.

[@lizafield9002]

I loved this. I needed it more than food, water and stars. It’s always been my path but cares and eldercare, harsh politics and ecological collapse have left me too long at the bottom of Cold Mtn. Red Pine’s divine Cold Mtn book, all the poems, is a battered beloved copy nearby. It’s all i want to read and one a day is enough. Because of Cold Mtn half my life ago, young and despairing for the Earth, I gathered up forces to save 4 mtns, a contiguous wilderness, in Virginia, 10k acres of land. Everyone said it could not be done but it got done. I put Cold Mtn poems on every mailing and help-us article. I think Han Shan pulled it off, or his spirit pervading the crags there. My mama, who died last year, led the finally-successful effort to save Mill mountain in Roanoke, VA from development, thru the same spirit of mtn solitude and mystical calling. I wonder how many other places were kept wild and viable, thru Cold Mountain, John Muir, Rachel Carson, Red Pine, Gary Snyder, Julia Butterfly Hill, et al. They changed the face of this earth, through their humble stoic wild ancient cosmos-huge love. They are stars in the night, who loved this planet and all beings.

[@michaelhazard]

Thank you for writing, Liza. I will share your love story with Red Pine. He will be tickled.

[@michaelhazard]

Red Pine responds: "That's humbling. And moving. Thanks for sharing it. Good thing Cold Mountain is here to read it. He'd head for the hills and never be seen again."

[@lizafield9002]

@@michaelhazard i can't believe i got to connect directly with & THANK you & Red Pine thru this venue. Not to mention Han Shan. My mother too. You can see yall's effect on & kindredness with her in this article link below. But before i forget, my other battered book (and hers) is called The Clouds Should Know Me By Now. The footnotes of that & the Cold Mtn poems are like a trail into timeless infinitude. I used to give copies of the "Clouds" book to people for the medicine of deep peace it carries, & mama totally related to the let-go, empty/ overflowing, mtn bluff, autumn spirit of those poems. After she lost her concentration & reading, midway thru Alzheimers, we could sing together & be silent. But those poems were the ONE thing i could read to her from any book, that wasn't "a buncha words" but carried life, the tao, & "took." ://roanoke.com/news/local/betty-field-longtime-champion-of-mill-mountain-dies-at-87/article_abca5256-2e98-11eb-b747-435039493874.html.

[@broquestwarsneeder7617]

beautiful documentary

[@HeathWatts]

What sort of music category would the man singing at 20:00 fit, if any? When he began, Muddy Waters came to mind.

[@michaelhazard]

Street singer is all that comes to mind, Heath. Our translator, Bill Porter (also known as Red Pine), writes, "The guy who's yelling is collecting junk (not garbage) and is calling 'Old stuff, tin or paper, whatever you don't want.'"

[@HeathWatts]

@@michaelhazard Thanks for this information and the translation, Mike. The man has an interesting voice and I have a habit of hearing music in everything.

[@karmayeshengondrubs4594]

Loved it. Thank you.

[@artswri]

Hear this! Give your ears a gift of refreshing cleansing.

[@paulmitchell5349]

Somebody once commented that a true hermit is able to live in the city.

[@kieranjohnston7550]

A recent article in the NYT chronicles the epidemic of street deaths among the homeless in places like Los Angeles. Most of them are deaths of despair and loneliness. If only these people had the wherewithal to choose to be hermits rather than to be forced by circumstances into being vagrants, then our societies would be much less toxic. I suppose the power to choose is where dignity lies.

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

Who said this ??? Remember: cities are completely UN-natural "inventions" ! In ancient times they were VERY rare ! And in the meanwhile ALL gone, doomed !!!

[@Liliquan]

@@kieranjohnston7550 What an utterly disgusting thing to say. People who are homeless are in need of help and support which they ought to get from society. Society is not the victim of homelessness, precisely the opposite. Yet you would scorn them for not being good enough because they intentionally choose not to be hermits but vagrants. Let's throw you out on the streets then and see what you become. I'll happily take your place and judge you viscously.

[@hrtbeat7]

(A Mountain Hermit Trilogy) 1. This high up, winter sets in early, leaves late. I have no complaint. I liked the light, and so I settled here. A small fire, twigs and dried grass - my few books long ago bestowed their kindling grace. The lure of the unknown no longer coincides with some urgent need for reasons or justifications - all of that is the usual business of knowing, but I’ve closed up that shop for the duration. Stalking my own mortality like a light-hunting night moth, it is as I suspected: I am what I’ve pursued. The futility of all effort: when I turn around, nobody’s there. Turning back again, I find myself everywhere. The phosphorescent trail traced by a snail in damp moonlight - a map on slick moisture, the pilgrimage from me to myself, transparently revealed. 2. Though everything born is destined to eventually die, a mysterious presence endures. If you seek to align with it, you have already abandoned it. If you try to attain it by always following others, you’re cutting off your own legs. Everywhere I travel, I always meet the same one, the one I am, yet I am not that one. That one aimlessly breezes along like a curious wind through rustled pines, while I just recline in the meadow, caressed by the crickets’ lulling songs, sifting me into the vast oncoming night. The perfection of this moonlight’s seduction does not go unsung by the awed nocturnal voices, now raised in a choir of synchronous harmony no artifice of pious chant can equal. Draped in luminous vestments of star-shine, the night slowly disrobes and remembers itself all over again, in the same way I recall myself, embraced by the welcoming vastness. This way of self-remembering - now unmistakably clear with impersonal truth, then relaxing, letting go, and forgetting that too . . . 3. Cutting off all my hair was easy. Relinquishing schemes of renunciation is a much steeper path to tread. I came a long way to forget myself, forgetting the one who remembers. Having roamed this wide world from mountain to shore for more years than I care to count, my journey itself may have been in vain, yet there’s wisdom found in failure too. The road’s red dust still clings to my clothes, but merciful tears have washed my eyes clear of despair and regret. I have always been grateful for water. I lean back here against the crumbling wall of a long-abandoned ruin, eyes brimming anew with sudden tears, now woven with the wind that swirls a blanket of cricket peace around my shoulders. What is there left to say - so many frosted moonlit nights cascading now behind me, sitting here amidst chill mists, mystified by dawn.

[@davidsilva4193]

did you write this? nice.

[@TomD67]

This is a wonderful film -- thank you for making and posting it! The only negative feedback I have is that at about 25:00 - 26:00, the music is so loud that it obscures the words being said.

[@michaelhazard]

Sorry about that. Here's a transcript of that minute. Gary Snyder: Once at Cold Mountain troubles cease. No more tangled, hung-up mind. I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff Taking whatever comes like a drifting boat. Burton Watson: I came once 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 come streaming down.

[@howardleekilby7390]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@johnmiller5259]

☺️🙏

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍

[@turiyahill]

Butterfly Woman...she doesn't speak...nor does she write.....Han Shan is still here.

[@triple_gem_shining]

But who appreciates the butterfly lady. Certainly not the king and his fair bunch. I wonder where the butterflies have flown to now

[@TomHardin-cj7vy]

This is better than gold. ❤

[@idiedlastmonth]

Great work! Thank you very much!

[@triple_gem_shining]

Zen

[@cartoonsandcannabis]

In Gassho 🙏🏼 Sensei-San ⛰️

[@howardleekilby7390]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@danielalexandermclachlanga3781]

this misery a revelling quietude Is a wishing fer whisky emptyness anyway

[@DizzyCsango]

Japhy Ryder!

[@AL_THOMAS_777]

-> KEROUAC !!! 🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍

[@meetontheledge1380]

The Dharma Bums! My favorite of them all. Kerouac dedicated the novel to Han Shan.

[@mark-c802]

somehow this makes me think of jack kerouac and his poetic sojorn on desolation peak...🎃

[@aperson00000]

所有的白人男性都在談論靜止和中國，太有趣了。 欣賞很好，但我認為他們想要女朋友. 寒山感恩

[@michaelhazard]

哈！你可能是对的。 谢谢你。

[@aperson00000]

🙏

[@ryokan9120]

Thank you for uploading this! I noticed Burton Watson was reading Han Shan from a tiny pocketbook. Is that tiny pocketbook his own translations? Who is the publisher? I'd love to buy that pocketbook, if anybody knows where I can buy it?

[@michaelhazard]

It's COLD MOUNTAIN (Shambhala Pocket Classics), translated by Burton Watson.

[@ryokan9120]

@@michaelhazard Oh! Thank you so much! I already have Watson's 100 poems of Cold Mountain published by Columbia University Press. Do you know if the Shambhala version contains all the 100 poems?

[@michaelhazard]

@@ryokan9120 Sorry, I do not.

[@ryokan9120]

@@michaelhazard That's okay! I went to the Shambhala website and I found out that edition has long been out of print. Also, Shambhala no longer produces those pocket classics. Instead, Shambhala have two different translations by Professor J P Seaton and Tanahashi.

[@michaelhazard]

@@ryokan9120 That's good. (And if you had to have the Shambala Han Shan, there's a used one on Amazon for $107.15!)

[@canweng5546]

9

[@paulr.7009]

Does anyone know what the monk is chanting at 0:42 or what this type of chanting is called?

[@michaelhazard]

Red Pine: It's the incense chant Lu Xiang Zan 爐香讚. I just typed Buddhist incense chant on google, and the first one that came up was by Tzu-chi's group in Taiwan and has the English translation of the words (its video image are ripples in a pond).

[@paulr.7009]

@@michaelhazard Ok, thank you very much!

[@qunyang8091]

这是在中国啊，你好

[@derkalamar4269]

I have to disagree with the suggestion made by the guy that Hanshan is just speaking to people's hearts whereas the other Chinese poets are more concerned with literary allusions and studying because Hanshan himself does make literary allusions to other texts that he had read, and does directly tell you to study the Analects if you want help with your journey to the Cold Mountain. Charming documentary nonetheless.

[@riverezell3953]

People say the same thing about Ikkyu, but Ikkyu and Han Shan both were quite well read in the classics and mention them often in their poems.

[@Liliquan]

These sorts of sweeping generalizations always make me cringe. They want to puff up Han Shan's uniqueness by disparaging other poets. Disgraceful.

[@simonlee8889]

Pity about the cartoons - they distracted from the reading of the poems in the original (as well as warping the experience with predictable anachronistic images...). The music of the language lost...

[@michaelhazard]

Close your eyes and listen.

[@zypherfx]

who else is here for a school assignment, I really hate this..

[@poppybell8217]

😂