Red Pine

I've rated this as 5⭐, but could just as easily have rated it 1, being the difference between what it probably means and what I understand of its meaning. I found it interesting while elusive, engaging while tiring.

I definitely gleaned some things from it, on an intellectual rather than a spiritual level, but as others have mentioned Red Pine's commentary is dense and certainly beyond my severely limited understanding of Buddhist thought.

However, if there's one thing I've taken from it, it's that the meaning of the sutra and the mantra are beyond intellectual understanding, but if I've understood this I can't have really understood it, so I seem to have got myself into something of a state of spiritual indeterminacy (I don't understand quantum physics either, but then if I said I did ...)… (more)

'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… (more)