Existence: A Story

(Paperback)

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The meaning of life-as expressed in a single Chinese landscape painting- a new work of meditative philosophy by the renowned translator of the Chinese classics and author of Hunger Mountain. Join David Hinton on an exploration of the entire nature of reality-an ambitious project for such a compact book, and even more amazing when you see that this cosmic journey happens all within the exploration of a single Chinese landscape painting. The painting called Peaceful-Distance Pavilion by Shih-t'ao (1642-1707) is, like other paintings in that genre, mostly space- one tiny figure, accompanied by an attendant, looks out over a vast landscape of mountains and clouds. But start looking into that space and, with the right guidance, what you end up seeing is profound. David Hinton is the perfect guide. He uses his knowledge of Chinese philosophy, poetry, art, language, and writing system to illuminate this painting's message, which is ultimately the story of the glorious dance between nothing and everything, between emptiness and existence. It's an enthralling journey that can change the way you look at the world, a journey for which David is a wise and eloquent guid

Reviews

In extraordinarily deft and patient hands, David Hinton delivers us intothe unknowable. Using as his guide the Chinese landscape painter ShihTao and other sage poet-painter-wanderers, he takes us to the very brink ofexistence and consciousness, beyond linguistic dualities of past and future,propelled by the life force that drives through us, from one step to thenext . . . you can almost hear the footfalls of his thinking and Chan practice . . .until we find ourselves in the strange surroundings of empty mind and fullheart, and finally, equanimity. It is an uncanny journey, essential for all.Gretel Ehrlich, author ofFacing the WaveandThis Cold Heaven

A pellucid gem of a bookI couldnt put it down. Through the vision ofa single, inexhaustible paintingwhose depth opens onto the mysteriesof meditation, calligraphy, poetry, and existence itselfHinton graduallydiscloses for us the whole vast and fathomless landscape of Taoist and Chan(Zen) spirituality. At first we gaze wonder-struck into the many-mountaineddistance; soon we find ourselves immersed; and then we dissolve into thechi-mist drifting up the forested slopes.David Abram, author ofThe Spell of the Sensuous

[Hinton is a] rare example of a literary Sinologistthat is, a classical scholarthoroughly conversant with, and connected to, contemporary literaturein English.New York Review of Books

Author Bio

DAVID HINTON is one of the most renowned translators of the Chinese Classics of our time. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his book Hunger Mountain, which was also desingnated as a Book-of-the-Year by The Guardian. He was the recipient of the 1997 American Academy of Poets Harold Morton Landon Translation Award and the 2007 PEN Award for translation. He was a 2003 Guggenheim Fellow, and has also been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation. He has published more than sixteen other books, among them translations of the Tao Te Ching, the Chuang Tzu, the poems of Li Po, and his monumental Classical Chinese Poetry- An Anthology.