I’ve been in the world for thirty years,

And I must have traveled a million miles.

Walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,

And entered the frontier where the red dust rises.

Purified potions in vain search for immortality,

Read books and perused the histories.

Today I return to Cold Mountain,

Pillow myself on the creek and wash out my ears.

-Poem 302, Hanshan, trans. Paul Rozer

Nearly 1,100 years ago, the poet Hanshan — known in the West as Cold Mountain — entered his fourth decade by occupying a cave in the Chinese mountains and occasionally venturing out to write poems on trees, rocks, and even Taoist and Buddhist temple walls. Many of them survive and have been collected and translated several times, and the three traditional Chinese spiritual traditions — the aforementioned Taoism and Buddhism, as well as Confucianism — all make some effort to claim Hanshan as one of their own....