While in Suzhou this past weekend, we visited the Cold Mountain Temple, named after the 7th century monk-poet Han Shan (his name means "Cold Mountain"). I was especially interested to visit this temple because ever since being introduced to Han Shan several years ago, I have enjoyed reading and re-reading his poems. As the reader learns, "Han Shan" or "Cold Mountain" is not actually a place as much as it is a state of mind. It's not that there is no actual Cold Mountain--there are several, but Han Shan's poems about climbing Cold Mountain are generally considered to be allegories of the path toward Enlightenment. They work as poems, however, because unlike, say, Wordsworth's reflections on Mt. Snowdon' in which the idealism of the poet is foregrounded, Han Shan's poems are vivid and even sensual (though in an uncanny sort of way), and the spiritual message is subliminally present in the landscape itself. The temple itself wasn't in very good repair and I didn't see any monks around, but I found myself drawn to the relationship between the two temple custodians pictured to the left. I like to imagine that the man in the picture is the face of the poet-monk Han Shan:

Wonderful this road to Cold Mountain--
Yet there's no sign of horse or carriage.
In winding valleys too torturous to trace,
On crags piled who knows how high,
A thousand different grasses weep with dew
And pines hum together in the wind.
Now it is, that straying from the path,
You ask your shadow, "What way from here?"
--Han Shan