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Night Falls Upon The Shore
Old Orchard Beach, Maine USA
People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don’t reach Cold Mountain
even in summer the ice doesn’t melt
sunny days the fog is too dense
how did something like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here
*Red Pine. Dancing with the Dead.
The above is a translation of a poem by the eminent Chinese poet Hanshan (b. ca. 600s-800s), who integrated Zen and Daoism in his life. After leaving city life, he took up residence at a Zen temple, Guoqing. He, then, lived alone not far from the temple.
Note: Cold Mountain is the poet Hanshan, not a physical place. Below, I use "Cold Mountain" as a metaphor of place, for I see the poem signifying such use of the person of the poet. Hence, to come to Cold Mountain is to arrive where Hanshan invites you from: and that is not a geographical location. Hanshan connotes a nonlocal experience and reality. Cold Mountain or Hanshan is the placeless place, like in Zen the gateless gate.
People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don't reach Cold Mountain
This is like saying, "There's no way to the Way." Why? The Way is the way. Paradox is the final point before the implosion of thought. For example, persons seek an experience of God, not seeing this experience is the experience of God: or, better, this is the nonexperience of God. As long as we try to experience Cold Mountain, we hold the thought of its opposite. When thought drops, experience and non-experience drop. Cold Mountain is not in the mind; the mind is in Cold Mountain.
A lot of people ask about the way - Way. Yet, for many, maybe most, that is the end. The mind cannot take us there - Cold Mountain. Nothing is wrong with the mind, but it does not drive the train.
This does not mean you cannot live at Cold Mountain. You can. At the end of the poem, Hanshan assures us he is there. He says we can be, too. He would welcome us to join him. Yet, again, there is no religious, spiritual, or philosophical map or GPS to tell us the way there. Such can give hints, however.
even in summer the ice doesn’t melt
sunny days the fog is too dense
These conditions may be true of where Hanshan lived among Daoist hermits in the mountains. Yet, he uses this to stress how he begins the poem: no way to get to the Way. No one has left any directions. Directions can take us to the entry of the wood, but directions end there. Directions - maps, GPS ... - can only be used for traversing spatial terrain. Cold Mountain is not a spatial place. In fact, it is not, therefore, a destination at all. When you are at Cold Mountain, you see Cold Mountain - not until.
how did something like me arrive
Hanshan seems surprised he is living at Cold Mountain, that he arrived where no one, including you and me, can arrive. Actually, Hanshan the person did not arrive at Cold Mountain. The universal Self, the ultimate dimension, takes the self, the relative person or ultimate dimension, into itself. The self is absorbed in the Self. Billy, Robert, Roselyn, Katie... is taken into the embrace of Buddha Nature, our True Face before we were born.
Possibly, too, we get a glimpse into the humbleness of the hermit. "Something like me" may indicate he recognizes there is nothing about Hanshan the person that could live at Cold Mountain, could deserve to live there. In Grace, deserve evaporates. Buddhas and Christs are humble beings.
Cold Mountain is the ultimate humiliation for the ego as separate self belief-and-sense. No wonder it creates so many games to escape Cold Mountain, even ones designed to appear religious and spiritual. The unconverted ego will be glad to attend meditation or worship, just not at Cold Mountain. The ego will be glad to go on a pilgrimage to holy sites, just not Cold Mountain.
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here
To arrive where we cannot arrive, we posture our whole being to receive the gift Cold Mountain. Cold Mountain, in fact, comes to us. "Comes to us" means awakens us to itself. What keeps pushing it away is illusion with its oft arrogance and fear. When we become the space for Cold Mountain, we arrive - we see. We may travel a long way to get there, but we see we did not go anywhere.
If you are going somewhere, it cannot be Cold Mountain. Yet, the travel is necessary, for the journey prepares us for Cold Mountain. Few encourage us to believe in Cold Mountain or to prepare for it. Hanshan, along with many others, wait for us there. And they tell us, "You don't have to wait until you die. Come on, now!"
How does the poem speak to you? What is "Cold Mountain" to you? Have you ever been introduced to "Cold Mountain" by "Cold Mountain"? What is meant by going far to go nowhere? If what "Cold Mountain" implies to you is with you already, what might keep you from welcoming it? Have you had moments of joyful self-forgetfulness? What does it mean that you are not a body-and-mind, but you have a body-and-mind?
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
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