David Hinton breathes new life into a foundational text of Taoism and Chinese philosophy in this poetic translation for the modern reader looking to go beyond the Tao Te Ching.Witty, engaging and spiced with the lyricism of poetry, Chuang Tzu’s Taoist insights in the Inner Chapters are timely and eternal. The only sustained section of text widely believed to be the work of Chuang Tzu himself, these chapters date to the 4th century B.C.E and are profoundly ...

Exploring the confluence of ancient Chinese spirituality and modern Western environmental thought, Wild Mind, Wild Earth reveals the unrecognized kinship of mind and nature that must be reanimated if we are to end our destruction of the planet.Earth is embroiled in its sixth major extinction event—this time caused not by asteroids or volcanos, but by us. At bottom, preventing this sixth extinction is a spiritual/philosophical problem, for it is the assumpt...

A deep and radically original exploration of Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist wisdom through the lens of the life and work of Tu Fu, widely considered China's greatest classical poet.What is consciousness but the Cosmos awakened to itself? This question is fundamental to the Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist worldview that shapes classical Chinese poetry. A uniquely conceived biography, Awakened Cosmos illuminates that worldview through the l...

Join renowned author David Hinton on two walks into the wild beauty and archaeological ruins of the desert Southwest, where he maps the edges of consciousness and our place in the Cosmos.Walks in the desert and journeys through Ch’an (Zen) enlightenment. Meditations on the nature of perception and on the nature of ruins. Topographies of mind and of space-time. Poetry and prose. This talismanic book is all of these and more.In this poetic odyssey of nature w...

A beautifully compelling and liberating guide to the original nature of Zen in ancient China by renowned author and translator David Hinton.Buddhism migrated from India to China in the first century C.E., and Ch'an (Japanese: Zen) is generally seen as China's most distinctive and enduring form of Buddhism. In China Root, however, David Hinton shows how Ch'an was in fact a Buddhist-influenced extension of Taoism, China's native system of spiritual philosoph...

This is the story of existence, and it begins with a painting. Join David Hinton, the premier modern translator of the Chinese classics, as he stands before a single landscape painting, discovering in it the wondrous story of existence—and as part of that story, the magical nature of consciousness. What he coaxes from the image is nothing less than a revelation: the dynamic interweaving of mind and Cosmos, and the glorious dance of Absence and Presence that is the secret of that C...

A new translation of one of the great koan collections--by the premier translator of the Chinese classics--that reveals it to be a literary and philosophical masterwork beyond its association with Chan/Zen.A monk asked: “A dog too has Buddha-nature, no?” And with the master’s enigmatic one-word response begins the great No-Gate Gateway (Wu-Men Kuan), ancient China’s classic foray into the inexpressible nature of mind and reality. For near...

The first collection of original poetry by the renowned nature writer and highly lauded translator of the Chinese classics.Traveling today Ifound a riversomewhere insideme, wonderedhow far itwanders thereand how muchsky itmirrors. All daylong, wind and desertlight, Ifollowed that river’sdistances . . .Weaving mind and landscape together in meditations on sky and wind, rid...

An exploration of the emerging Western consciousness of how deeply we belong to the wild Cosmos, as seen through the lineage of modern America's great avant-garde poets --a thrilling journey with today's premier translator of the Chinese classics.Henry David Thoreau, in The Maine Woods, describes a moment on Mount Ktaadin when all explanations and assumptions fell away for him and he was confronted with the wonderful, inexplicable thusness of things. David Hinton t...

This ancient text records the teachings of Mencius (4th c. B.C.E.), the second originary sage in the Confucian tradition which has shaped Chinese civilization for over two thousand years.In a culture that makes no distinction between those realms we call the heart and the mind, Mencius was the great thinker of the heart, and it was he who added the profound inner dimensions to the Confucian vision. Given his emphasis on the heart, it isn't surprising that his philo...

An expert on Chinese poetry and philosophy offers a definitive modern translation of Lao Tzu’s Taoist classic—considered the most influential spiritual text in human history.Like all of his translations, Hinton’s translation of the Tao Te Ching is mind–opening, presenting startling new dimensions in this widely–influential text. He shows how Lao Tzu’s spirituality is structured around the generative life–force and that this system of thought weaves the hum...

The earliest and most extensive literary engagement with wilderness in human history, Mountain Home is vital poetry that feels utterly contemporary. China's tradition of "rivers-and-mountains" poetry stretches across millennia. This is a plain-spoken poetry of immediate day-to-day experience, and yet seems most akin to China's grand landscape paintings. Although its wisdom is ancient, rooted in Taoist and Zen thought, the work feels utterly contemporary, especiall...