I believe in the abundance of this planet. I don’t want to speak too much about it because the more you think you know, the less the magic works. But I am a true believer that there is an abundance factor, either through angels or through karma.
- Ethan Hubbard, author of First Light and Grandfather’s Gift, from my interview of him in 1992.
There are a couple of videos on YouTube of Bill trekking in the Zhongnan mountains of China, picking his way over steep, narrow mountain trails. Some of them are treacherous. When these were filmed he was in his seventies, and not in mountaineering shape. He goes up into the mountains to find hermits and interview them. He asks them questions in a sensitive and gentle way. You can watch my favorite of these videos here.
Spring water is pure in an emerald stream
moonlight is white on Cold Mountain
silence thoughts and the spirit becomes clear
focus on emptiness and the world grows still.
- Han Shan (aka Cold Mountain), 9th Century T’ang Dynasty, as interpreted by Red Pine, The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. You can read some more of my favorite quotes from Bill Porter’s books here.
. . . .
Silence thoughts, invite emptiness
The universe beckons.
- journal reflection
There are journeys and then there are magical journeys. There are inner journeys. There are journeys that don’t ask much of us – the cushy Alaskan or Mediterranean cruise. There are journeys that challenge us in a deep and profound way, that gouge our being, that transform us. And of course, it is possible to avoid all journeys, all challenges, and live a sheltered life working at the post office and going home, opening a beer and watching television. And then doing it all again the next day in an endless series of tomorrows. In the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit, “We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
- John A. Shedd in his 1928 book Salt From My Attic
When you embrace your adventure, sometimes strange things happen, and not all of them good. But some wonderful things happen. Sometimes, on some journeys, you encounter a series of mysterious events. You enter the woods where there is no trail and you make your own trail. You follow a path that no one else can see or appreciate. Bill Porter has lived a unique life, and created truly unique work. His life and work have benefited from a strange series of fortuitous events that might be considered luck. The guidance he needed in order to continue showed up. Crucial financial support showed up when he most needed it. It is not that his path has been easy. For eighteen years, when he came back from China and worked on his books, he lived on food stamps. But when he really needed help, when he really needed guidance, help showed up and the way forward became clear.
This has been my experience too. When I really needed help in the early days of Heron Dance (the predecessor to Zen Mountain Journal), help showed up. We constantly had less than a thousand dollars in the bank but when the printer bill for $4500 came in, somehow the $4500 showed up.
And when I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, stage IV non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and had so much chemotherapy that my blood counts were too low to continue, and there were no therapeutic options left, a chance meeting with an old client from my Wall Street days led me to an experimental drug in Germany (WF10 or TCDO) that kept me alive until a cure, Rituxan, was developed. Luck? Could be. Who knows? I agree with Ethan Hubbard -- the more you think you know, the less the magic works. And I also believe that when you are on a journey where mysterious, magical events support your way forward, life is offering you an immense gift, a gift few accept.
Early in my Heron Dance days, I encountered a book by Diane Osbon, A Joseph Campbell Companion. I read three paragraphs over and over:
As we love ourselves, we move toward our own bliss, by which Joseph Campbell meant our highest enthusiasm. The word entheos means “god-filled.” Moving towards that which fills us with the godhood, that place where time is not, is all we need to do to change the world around us. Then we, naturally and without effort, love others and allow them to move beyond their self-imposed limitations, and in their own ways. The goal is to evolve to that place where the energy that had been projected outward to correct the world is turned around to correct oneself -- to get on our own track and to dance, in balance, between the worlds.
Following your bliss, as Joseph meant it, is not self-indulgent but vital; your whole physical system knows that this is the way to be alive in this world and the way to give the world the very best that you have to offer. There is a track just waiting for each of us, and once on it, doors will open that were not open before and would not open for anyone else. Everything does start clicking along, and yes, even Mother Nature herself supports the journey.
I have found that you do have only to take that one step toward the gods and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will be supported. The hero’s journey has been compared to a birth; it starts out warm and snug in a safe place; then comes a signal, growing more insistent, that it is time to leave. To stay beyond your time is to putrefy. Without the blood and tearing and pain, there is no new life.
There are no guarantees. The first step out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, takes courage. And there will be blood and tearing and pain. There will be setbacks. There will be times when you question your courage, your strength, your commitment. If you are like me, you’ll wonder, at times, whatever possessed you to get off the couch.
I suspect, when I offer these thoughts to Bill Porter in a few days during our follow-up interview, he may demur. I suspect he sees his life journey and work in much less dramatic and heroic terms. He is a gentle man and he’s spent his life studying the lives and spiritual practices of gentle people. One of the things that I wonder about Bill’s life is how much of the impetus to embark on this work came from his childhood and a need to find a better way.
In the interview he talks about why he chose anthropology as an area of study:
The reason I wanted to study anthropology when I got out of the Army was because I thought by studying all the different ways people live their lives in the world, I could choose one. . .
I thought by just learning the different ways people live their lives, I could put together something that made sense for me. . . I was, trying to put my life together because my family was not something I wanted to be a part of. . . My father was one of the wealthier people. After he got out of prison for bank robbery, he started up a chain of hotels. He had 52 hotels when I was born, which I grew up around, and he was the head of the Democratic Party at one time in California, and then, at the end in Idaho. I grew up around rich and famous, powerful people, and it was, it was detestable, to live, and be in the presence of people like that.
So as a child, I already chose my path. And, learning Chinese just opened up a new, a door to a new part of that path, and I’ve just been following it ever since. (edited)\
In the interview, Bill goes into detail about how he came to learn Chinese – he had no real interest in the language, he was applying for financial assistance so he could remain at Columbia University. One of the programs he applied for was offered by the Department of Defense to students who would study a foreign language of interest to the Department. Learning some Chinese enabled him to communicate with a Buddhist monk he happened to meet in New York’s Chinatown, which led to a friendship, which led to learning how to meditate, which led Bill to a monastery in Taiwan, which led to the abbot of that monastery giving Bill a book written in Chinese characters on the poetry of Cold Mountain (Han Shan), which led to Bill translating that book. A need for income led to a chance radio interview with a plastics magnate who had an interest in Taoism. He funded Bill’s trip to China’s Zhongnan mountains in search of hermits, which led to the book Road to Heaven. And that led to several other books and more treks into the mountains to interview hermits.
All coincidences? Maybe. Could be. Certainly possible. It is also possible that it has been Bill’s sacred journey. His childhood gave him the impetus to investigate new possibilities, and when opportunities presented themselves, he took that step out of and over his boundaries, and that, in turn, has led him to a deep, wonderful experience of life.
Towards the end of the interview, when I asked Bill about the popularity of his books in China he said, “ I’m sort of a, a cultural hero in China. I say that softly because the gods might be listening.” I wrote to him afterward and asked whether he meant he had been guided. He wrote back: “I did make some decisions. But they don’t really explain that much. It’s the gods, I tell ya.”
What gods are those, Bill? I suspect he has no idea, but it will be interesting to ask him.
I talk with Bill again on Saturday.
Spring Travel
Keeping on and on,
a traveler gets farther, farther away;
dust without cease
follows a horse through the world.A traveler’s feelings
after the sun’s rays slant --
colors of spring
in the morning mist.
The river’s flow heard
at the empty inn --
flowers just blooming
at the old palace.I think of home
a thousand li away;
green-willow wind
stirs on the pond.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623), as interpreted by Red Pine, The Clouds Should Know Me By Now, Buddhist Poet Monks of China
. . .
I think of home
A thousand miles away
A horse, a river’s flow, an empty inn
Flowers bloom
I go on, but still think of home.
- journal reflection
. . .
You can view this post on the Zen Mountain Journal website here.
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