“Bill Porter has been one of the most prolific translators of Chinese texts, while also developing into a travel writer with a cult following.”
—New York Times
(The audio is shaky between ~ 2m30s – 5m. Apologies for that. I owe you a high five)
Bill Porter (Red Pine) on Zen and Taoist Masters, Mountain Hermits, & the Life of a Translator
Bill Porter, aka Red Pine, calls the hermit life, “graduate school for the spiritually inclined.” Bill Porter is a translator of Buddhist and Taoist mountain poets that uncross your third eye and waft the scent of a fine scotch.
What can I say about Bill Porter that he won’t say better about himself? I first stumbled on his book Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits while on retreat. His adventures and chitchats with hermits beckoned me to discover more about this hermit tradition and the man captivated by trekking into the mountains in search of monks living off the map. Bill is credited with an uptick of interest in the hermit life in China.
Stateside Bill Porter is best known under his translator name of Red Pine, translating the work of Cold Mountain, Stonehouse, Lao Tzu and others over at the granddaddy of beautiful publishing Copper Canyon. We talk about this and more.
To visit Bill Porter, well if you bump into him in his hometown. To find his work online go his publisher Copper Canyon at coppercanyonpress.org.
Episode Show Notes
Books by Bill Porter / Red Pine
- The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse
- The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
- Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits
- Bill’s full catalog at Copper Canyon Press
Resources & People Mentioned
- Master Red Pine (Taoist teacher)
- Jack Shoemaker
- Counterpoint Press
- Gary Snyder
- Sam Hamill
- Margaret Mead
- The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
- Manual of Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki
- Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
- Winston Wong
Drink Recommendation
- Bourbon
Photo from coppercanyonpress.org
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