Comments on: The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-jan

By: Jeff Masters

Jeff Masters — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:44:49 +0000

People never change. The thoughts and feelings of thousands of years ago are still with us today.
It seems strange (to me). When I think of the past I feel things were different, in black and white. Poetry, music, emotion changes all of that.

By: ryan

ryan — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Simply, we are all influenced by our environment. Live day to day in Manhattan and your visions will be reflected by it. Live in the mountains and the same is true. Which is clarity? I agree that nearing yourself to creation does inspire that sense of awe. However, we must live in the reality of our existence which is not always in the mountains communing with the elements.

By: Loren

Loren — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s see, now, I spent most of my life in Seattle,WA, Oakland, CA, and in the suburbs of Portland, OR. While none of these is exactly NYC, they aren’t hardly rural America.

The greatest environmentalists in American history, Emerson and Thoreau, not to mention Whitman, came from Boston and NYC.

Those who are forced to earn their living fighting nature are unlikely to have the same perspective as those who don’t have to fight nature for their existence.

By: Stuart Greenhouse

Stuart Greenhouse — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is a great post, thank you. YOu have a good ear for the taoist aesthetic.

As for the previous comments, I remember living in Manhattan, I wrote all of the poems I value regarding my living on Vashon Island (in Puget Sound). Paradoxically/complimentarily, at the end of my first year there, when I left one summer for a month in upstate New York, my mind couldn’t accept–on a reflexive level–that there weren’t ^people^ in space ten, twenty feet away from me at all times, that I didn’t have to be careful in open space for fear of a car trying to park there. It took a few days for this sensation to wear off. I have a lot of sympathy for the decision to cultivate a direct relationship with nature, away from an urban environment. It is, I think, far easier to cultivate a non-egoic internal environment in this way. But intention is the key, either way.