A fresh translation--and new envisioning--of the most accessible and beloved of all classic Chinese poetry.
Welcome to the magical, windswept world of Cold Mountain. These poems from the literary riches of China have long been celebrated by cultures of both East and West—and continue to be revered as among the most inspiring and enduring works of poetry worldwide. This groundbreaking new translation presents the full corpus of poetry traditionally associated with Hanshan (“Cold Mountain”) and sheds light on its origins and authorship like never before. Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt honor the contemplative Buddhist elements of this classic collection of poems while revealing Hanshan’s famously jubilant humor, deep love of solitude in nature, and overwhelming warmth of heart. In addition, this translation features the full Chinese text of the original poems and a wealth of fascinating supplements, including traditional historical records, an in-depth study of the Cold Mountain poets (here presented as three distinct authors), and more.
“A deep, inspiring, inclusive study of the mysterious poet Hanshan. This book includes all his poems with a beautiful introduction by Levitt and a thorough historical analysis by Tanahashi. The reader can feel the joy, care, and reverence both translators experienced and share in creating this book about the wild hermit poet. Just read a few of these ancient poems and you’ll want to take off for the mountains and open your arms to all of life, including the pain and suffering. Read more and you will find your own true heart right here in the present. This book should be read by everyone.”—Natalie Goldberg, author of The Great Spring and Writing Down the Bones
“This comprehensive work of original scholarship and incisively translated verses expands our knowledge of an iconic poet. Here is the Hanshan of social fabric and family as well as of monastery and mountain; the poet of parable, rebuke, and opinion as well as of dharma and icy stream. A sharp-tongued observer of society’s failures describes inequality’s effects on the spirit; a rapt solitary shares cliff-edge mind with tigers, free-drifting boats, and clouds. Kaz Tanahashi’s and Peter Levitt’s The Complete Cold Mountain joins the shelf of indispensable translations, confirming and extending Hanshan’s abiding relevance, presence, history, and range.”—Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World
“Hanshan may be legendary or he may have been three people, but these poems, wherever they came from, are more real than real. They are living Tao and Chan artifacts, well over one thousand years old, brought to life and framed in the most amazing ways with the deepest appreciation for and direct transmission of their down-to-earth, embodied, non-dual, poetic elegance and existential poignancy by Kaz Tanahashi and Peter Levitt. This work—the poems themselves coupled with the authors’ probing commentaries about their puzzling origins, structure, and essence—is a jewel, with the wondrous property that you can live inside it and let it live inside you for a long, long time.”—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Meditation Is Not What You Think
“The Complete Cold Mountain is an extraordinary collection of the complete works of Hanshan; brilliantly translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt, it lifts the spirit in the great mountains and beyond.”—Joan Halifax, abbot of Upaya Zen Center and author of Standing at the Edge
