Existence: A Story

The mystery of existence and our place in that mystery--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, the premier modern translator of the Chinese classics, as he stands before a single landscape painting, discovering in it the wondrous story of existence--and as part of that story, the magical nature of consciousness. What he coaxes from the image is nothing less than a revelation: the dynamic interweaving of mind and Cosmos, and the glorious dance of Absence and Presence that is the secret of that Cosmos.

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 guide.

作者簡介

　　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 bookHunger Mountain, which was also desingnated as a Book-of-the-Year byTheGuardian. 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 theTao Te Ching, theChuang Tzu, the poems of Li Po, and his monumentalClassical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology."