Title Page -- Note to the Reader -- Contents -- Preface -- Here in the woods I have lots of free time. -- Seven-Syllable Verses -- 1. I made my home west of Cha River -- 2. To glimpse the uttering of shy birds -- 3. Grave upon grave buried beneath weeds -- 4. A paper-window bamboo hut a hedge of hibiscus -- 5. To glorify the Way what should people turn to -- 6. Movement isn't right and stillness is wrong -- 7. Below the pines its twin doors are never closed -- 8. More than twenty years west of Mount Yen -- 9. Green gullies and red cliffs wherever I look -- 10. Don't think a mountain home means you're free -- 11. My hut is at the top of Hsia Summit -- 12. After twenty years of nights beneath the moon and the clouds -- 13. Seclusion of course means far from the world -- 14. I entered the mountains and learned to be dumb -- 15. The streams are so clear and shallow I can see pebbles -- 16. A white-haired Zen monk with a hut for my home -- 17. I sleep in the clouds where the sun doesn't shine -- 18. My Zen hut rests upon rocks at the summit -- 19. The Great Way has never known abundance or want -- 20. My broken-down hut rests upon rocks -- 21. A human life lasts one hundred years -- 22. A trail through green mist red clouds and bamboo -- 23. A monk on his own sits quiet and relaxed -- 24. I may be white-haired and nothing but bones -- 25. I chose high cliffs far from a market -- 26. Their zigzagging sails crowd government quays -- 27. Who enters this gate who studies this teaching -- 28. A friend of seclusion arrives at my gate -- 29. A hundred years pass by in a fl ash -- 30. I entered the mountains and my cares became clear -- 31. This body lasts about as long as a bubble -- 32. I saw through my worldly concerns of the past -- 33. Day after day I let things go -- 34. A white-haired monk afflicted with age.

35. Profit and fame aren't worth extolling -- 36. I was a Zen monk who didn't know Zen -- 37. I've lived as a hermit more than forty years -- 38. Scorpion tails and wolf hearts pervade the world -- 39. The crow and the hare race without rest -- 40. A thatch hut in blue mountains beside a green stream -- 41. The ancients entered mountains in search of the Way -- 42. Everything's growth depends on its roots -- 43. I live in the mountains in order to practice -- 44. I searched high and low without success -- 45. Old but at peace in body and mind -- 46. Opening my door at dawn to fetch water -- 47. I built a thatched hut deep in the clouds -- 48. Examine the patterns of transient existence -- 49. To get to the end the very end -- 50. I'm a poor but happy follower of the Way -- 51. You know very well yet seem not to know -- 52. The shame of dumb ideas is suffered by the best -- 53. A round head and square robe constitute a monk -- 54. The sunrise in the east the sunset in the west -- 55. The Way of the Dharma is too singular to copy -- 56. There isn't much time in this fleeting life -- Five-Syllable Verses -- 57. Followers of the Way are done with reason -- 58. A hoe provides a living -- 59. Most of the time I smile -- 60. Reasoning comes to an end -- 61. The landscape unrolls from the cliffs -- 62. A winding muddy trail -- 63. A monk's home in the mountains -- 64. Where did that gust come from -- 65. From the very top of Hsiawushan -- 66. A hoe supplies a living -- 67. Lunch in my mountain kitchen -- 68. True emptiness is like a translucent sea -- 69. The Eighth Month in the mountains -- 70. A thatch hut in a bamboo grove -- 71. As soon as the red sun bites the mountain -- 72. I hiked staff in hand beyond the pines -- 73. On a ten-thousand-story-high mountain -- 74. Advancing or retiring grasping or letting go -- 75. I weave rush grass for my hut.

Seven-Syllable Quatrains -- 76. A thatch hut is lonely on a new fall night -- 77. Mountains of fiddleheads garden of tea -- 78. Someone asked what year I arrived -- 79. If you hate hard work and like to loaf -- 80. Old and retired I nurse a sick body -- 81. Novices don't stay to stir the fire -- 82. Jade-hall silver-candle nights of song -- 83. All those I meet say the world's ways are hard -- 84. There's nothing going on in my mountain kitchen -- 85. I plant winter melon then aubergine -- 86. Will the porridge or rice ever end -- 87. Eight or nine pines behind his hut -- 88. This is something no one can force -- 89. What's gone is already gone -- 90. Three or four naps every day -- 91. The fl ux of attachments is easy to stop -- 92. True emptiness is clear and always present -- 93. Sky Lake is a pool of aquamarine -- 94. Old and exhausted I'm truly lazy -- 95. Old through and through I'm utterly lazy -- 96. There's no dust to sweep on a mountain -- 97. My hut is two maybe three mats wide -- 98. Why do my Zen friends choose smoke and vines -- 99. A clean patch of ground after a rain -- 100. Ten thousand schemes and fantasies have ended -- 101. My home in the cliffs is like a tomb -- 102. There's a snag in front like a standing man -- 103. Up-and-down mountain zigzag trail -- 104. A hundred years slip by unnoticed -- 105. There's a road to the West nobody takes -- 106. Try to find what's real and what's real becomes more distant -- 107. Trying to become a buddha is easy -- 108. Stripped of conditions my mind is at rest -- 109. Work with no mind and all work stops -- 110. No mind in my work the wind blows through the trees -- 111. New year head old year tail -- 112. Head of white hair shoulders all bones -- 113. Before I can finish the Lankavatara -- 114. Corpses don't stink in the mountains -- 115. Rain soaks my hut then the sun shines.

116. No one else sees what I see clearly -- 117. Half the window pine shadows half the window moon -- 118. Not one care in mind all year -- 119. For dinner I cook a bowl of old rice -- 120. I moved west into a maze of peaks -- 121. Mountain wind ripped out my old paper windows -- 122. The setting sun's cold light fills half the window -- 123. A few trees in bloom radiant red -- 124. I shut my door before the clouds return -- 125. After porridge after rice after drinking tea -- 126. Dense fog and clouds too thick to push away -- 127. As soon as the sun lights the southeast sky -- 128. I eat a peach spit out the pit the pit becomes a tree -- 129. My hut isn't quite ten feet across -- 130. Don't run away when he strikes -- 131. Our time is confined to one hundred years -- 132. The whole Buddhist Canon is worthless old paper -- 133. Leaves along the shore stop and ow with the stream -- 134. Hsiawu is high and the trail is long -- 135. I feel old and decrepit and weaker by the day -- 136. A hermit's hut is lonely encircled by bamboo -- 137. People say everyday mind isn't our buddha nature -- 138. East or west north or south then back again -- 139. What sort of work takes place in the mountains -- 140. Too long away from monasteries I don't have a cushion -- 141. When my clothes come apart I plant hemp -- 142. Parched wheat and pine pollen make a fine meal -- 143. Life in the mountains depends on a hoe -- 144. I repair my hoe and let my hut lean -- 145. From outside my round pointed-roof hut -- 146. I built a thatch hut beneath tall pines -- 147. Late autumn rain is all mist -- 148. When the red sun climbs above the blue mountains -- 149. My hut is so secluded it's beyond the reach of dust -- 150. Now that I'm old nothing disturbs me -- 151. After meditation I chant a Cold Mountain poem -- 152. For property monks apply at an offi ce.

153. I put mulberry wood in the stove to make charcoal -- 154. Last year my food supply failed me -- 155. A pointed-roof hut in the shade of the clouds -- 156. How could someone who practices not become a buddha -- 157. I sit and meditate in the quiet and dark -- 158. Jade-winged plum blossoms perfumed trees -- 159. Good and bad fortune never lose their way -- 160. A lotus-leaf robe keeps me warm when I'm cold -- 161. My newly sewn paper quilt is so warm -- 162. I chop green wood and lift the pole -- 163. It's hard to say if the year has been hot or cold -- 164. Surrounding the summit is nothing but pines -- 165. Sewing purple robes with fine yellow silk -- 166. Spring is gone summer is gone and autumn is cool -- 167. The people I meet are busy night and day -- 168. People all know about death and rebirth -- 169. People all say there is time to cultivate -- Other Verses -- 170. To Redcurtain Mountain and Sky Lake Spring -- 171. A clear sky and nothing planned I climbed Hsia Summit -- 172. Magpies talk magpie outside my hut -- 173. The trees in the forest grow new leaves -- 174. Cold Mountain has a line -- 175. The moon lights up my door -- 176. After a meal I dust off a boulder and sleep -- 177. If you don't read sutras when you're young -- 178. I planted a few hills of beans -- 179. Whenever the mountain enjoys a good rain -- 180. I built my hut on a desolate ridge -- 181. Letting go means letting everything go -- 182. My broken-down hut isn't three rafters wide -- 183. I built my hut on top of Hsia Summit -- 184. A couple of impoverished monks -- About the Translator -- Also by Red Pine -- Acknowledgments -- Copyright -- Pressmark -- Special Thanks.