Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits - Softcover

Bill Porter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1562790412 ISBN 13: 9781562790417

Publisher: Mercury House, 2009

Synopsis

The author recounts his search for, and encounters with, hermits living in the mountains of China and discusses the history of the hermit tradition in China

About this title

Reviews

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.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Porter, who as ``Red Pine'' has written several studies of Eastern religions (The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma, 1989, etc.-- not reviewed), now clambers over the Chugnan mountains of central China in search of solitary mystics and saints. The author sets out in the spring of 1989 with photographer Steven Johnson, and immediately runs up against Beijing's official line that hermits no longer exist in China. But of course they do, and by bumping from mountain to mountain and knocking on one monastery door after another, Porter ferrets out nearly two dozen examples of what he calls ``the happiest and wisest people in China.'' Some readers may balk at Porter's description, for while a number of the hermits--mostly elderly Buddhist monks, though a few are nuns, young, or Taoist--radiate bliss, others talk of loneliness or sorrow. And while some offer simple truths (``If you don't practice, you achieve nothing''), others bat away Porter's questions (`` `What sort of practice do you do?'... Chi-Ch'eng: `I just pass the time' ''), or slip from truth to truism (``If someone is drowning and you can't swim, it doesn't do any good to jump in yourself''). But this matters little, since the hermits are charming and, in any case, the bulk of Porter's narrative consists not of hermit-chat but of a loose blend of history and travelogue. Porter unfolds a dizzying panorama of cliffs and valleys, crumbling monasteries and canny abbots, all the while discoursing on the rise of Taoism, its encounter with Buddhism, the lives of past hermits, the outlines of Tantra. Lessons emerge: the value of silence; the need to balance inner practice with community service; the differing aims of hermits, with some of them questing after immortality, others seeking escape from illusion. As travelogue/history, cluttered; as ethnographic resource, unique--and as for those hermits, they're the salt of the earth. (Thirty-three b&w photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this first-person narrative, the author relates his journey to seek out the religious hermits of China, who left civilization and chose to live alone as monks in the mountains of China, quietly practicing their Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian faith. Sprinkled with Eastern religious philosophy, Chinese current affairs, and personal observations, this travel book reveals a secluded world very few people believed survived the purges of the Chinese Communists. The author wisely includes transcripts from conversations with many of the hermits, both men and women, and through their words the reader comes away with a better understanding of their lives and their reasons for deciding to live their harsh existence. This is not intended to be a scholarly study but an invitation to the public to discover this relatively unknown aspect of Chinese religious culture. Recommended for public libraries.
- Glenn Masuchika, Chaminade Univ. Lib., Honolulu
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mercury House
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1562790412
• ISBN 13: 9781562790417
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232