Bill Porter (1)Critiques

'Bill Porter's Road to Heaven is a brillaint essay on the traditions of Chinese hermits, a startling reminder of how far we have gone astray. It should be a part of any serious Zen or Taoist library.'-Jim Harrison

Contents

Chinese dynasties and republics
Map of the Sian area and Chungnan Mountains
One Hermit heaven
Two MOuntains of the moon
Three If the world is muddy
Four On the trail of the tao
Five Sound of the crane
Six Road to Heaven
Seven Cloud people
Eight The bird that is a mountain
Nine Crossing heartbreak ridge
Ten Home of he evening star
Eleven visiting Wang Wei, finding him gone
Twelve When the tao comes to town
Notes on the spelling of Chinese names
Acknowledgments

NA

In the spring of 2006, Bill Porter traveled through the heart of China, from Beijing to Hong Kong, on a pilgrimage to sites associated with the first six patriarchs of Zen. Zen Baggage is an account of that journey. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters, and translations of the earliest known records of Zen, along with personal vignettes. Porter's account captures the transformations taking place at religious centers in China but also the abiding legacy they have somehow managed to preserve. Porter brings wisdom and humor to every situation, whether visiting ancient caves containing the most complete collection of Buddhist texts ever uncovered, enduring a six-hour Buddhist ceremony, searching in vain for the ghost in his room, waking up the monk in charge of martial arts at Shaolin Temple, or meeting the abbess of China's first Zen nunnery. Porter's previously published Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits has become recommended reading at Zen centers and universities throughout America and even in China (in its Chinese translation), and Zen Baggage is sure to follow suit.

Bill Porter (Red Pine) trekked through China's remote Chungnan Mountains in search of hermits. Lessons of spiritual wisdom emerge from his interviews with more than twenty male and female hermits.

Took me a while to get into properly, but ignore the directions and the cast is fascinating. An introduction to types of buddhism/zen/taoism, set in the context of a rapidly changing, emerging China. Will read again.

Not entirely what I expected. The actual conversations were interesting, but there was too much travel described between them.

This is a look at the traces of classical Chinese civilization along the length of the Huang He. The various historical sites the author visits are impeccably chosen, and his synopses are well-informed and capture something of the fascination of this culturally rich area. There is also thankfully little of the condescension towards the modern world that can mar travelogues of this sort. Unfortunately, the book felt a bit perfunctory and outside of a few descriptions and photographs it lacked the vitality of the best travel writing. There was little here that could not have been written by scholar sitting at home at his desk.

The first foray into an unknown field of research is a challenge. Much of the time is spent searching out false leads and running into dead-ends. Up one hill only to notice several hills that follow in the distance. Promising lands up close are disappointing and barren. You are running half blind-folded and grasping at whatever possible trail you pick up. This was the feeling gathered from Bill Porter’s “Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits”. Anxious to find his quarry of modern mountain hermits in China; Porter’s book reads like a survey report pitched together with scraps of info from field notes and recorded conversations.

Is this sounding negative? It shouldn’t since this raw, indigestible writing agreed with me for a topic that tends towards idealization in the Western Buddhist community. “Oh! If only I could find silence and peace I could practice so much easier.” “If only I lived on some mountain, some river-side, some beach, some fucking other place.” If only I read more sutras, started younger, had the correct type of cushion, the right teacher …

In this book Chinese hermits, enigmatic as they may be, largely existed solely from the donations and support of larger monasteries or families. What was disappointing in this book was the lack of detail really spent on the lives and interviews but what information was gleamed from the wisdom of the hermits was a stark reminder that practice was practice. Taoist, Zen and Pure Land were simply labels that, when practice became organic and fluid, began to blur and blend into each other.

Q: Is Pure Land practice more appropriate for the present age?

Hsu-tung: All practices are appropriate. There’s no right or wrong dharma. It’s a matter of aptitude, your connection from past lives. Once people start practicing, they think other kinds of practice are wrong. But all practices are right. It depends on the individual as to which is appropriate. And all practices are related. They involve each other. They lead to the same end….The goal is the same. Practice is like candy. People like different kinds. But its just candy. The Dharma is empty.

__________________

Q: What sort of practice do you follow? Do you chant the name of the Buddha or meditate?

Chi-ch’eng: I just pass the time.

__________________

Te-ch’eng: I teach all sorts of odds and ends. You name it. Whatever seems to fit. A little of this, a little of that. This is what practice is all about. You can’t practice just one kind of dharma. That’s a mistake. The Dharma isn’t one-sided. You have to practice Zen. If you don’t you’ll never break through delusions. And you’ve got to practice the precepts. If you don’t, your life will be a mess. You’ve got to practice Pure Land. If you don’t, you’ll never get any help from the Buddha. You have to practice all dharmas….Its a system. All practices are related.

The wisdom of hermits isn’t austere. It is practical and rooted deeply in practice. A practice that is embedded in the Dharma but expressed in the daily working of a hard, cold and sometimes lonely life. In that way the practice of the hermits is not so far from our own practice at times. Maybe we need a tang of loneliness to view ourselves in meditation or the bite of wind to help us gasp the name of the Buddha.

Or maybe we just pass the time.

The finest nonfiction transports the reader or viewer to lands or people unknown, unseen by the vast majority of us. Director Edward A. Burger's journey began when he read Bill Porter's Road to Heaven, which whispered secrets about an ancient sect of Zen masters living in isolation in the furthest reaches of the Zhongnan Mountains. Inspired, Burger retraces barely visible footprints and locates the wise men and women who call the mountains their home and who maintain traditions reaching back 5,000 years. Burger himself becomes a student of one master, but his camera and curiosity lead to ever more remote areas of the mountains in search of the most revered wise men. Few foreigners have ever been this close, and it is with exceptional grace and an eye for details that he allows the viewer the privilege of joining him. (MF)