Cold Mountain Poetry

100

Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house?

They're better for you than sutra-reading!

Write them out and paste them on a screen

Where you can glance them over from time to time.




94

All my life I have been lazy,

Hating anything solemn, finding light matters more congenial.

Others may study how to make a profit,

I have my single roll of scripture.

I do not bother to fit is with roller or case,

Or trouble to carry it here and there.

Like a doctor prescribing a medicine for each disease,

I use what remedy is at hand to save the world.

Only when the mind is free of care

Can the light of understanding shine in every corner.




85

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 stream down.




68

Would you know a metaphor for life and death?

Compare them, then, to water and ice.

Water binds together and becomes ice;

Ice melts and reverts to water.

What has died must live again,

What has been born shall return to death.

Water and ice do not harm each other;

Life and death are both of them good.