Hermits and Zen Masters

Last Tuesday (Oct 16), I attended a lecturer by the anthropologist Bill Porter in the bookstore, called The Bookworm. Bill took the audience (150 people) through a slide show about Taoist and Buddhist monks and nuns living in huts and caves deep in the mountains of central China. Bill is an American who lived in a Taiwanese monastery for three years in the 1970’s where he got introduced to the Zen Teachings. In the 1980’s when China opened up to traveling, Bill began to search for hermits who might have survived under years of communism and interviewed more than 20 male and female hermits. His presentation was loaded with humor and along the way I learned a few things about this amazing hermit tradition. The most fun was the Q&A session, where Bill clarified a few fantasies that we might have about these monks and nuns: they don’t seem to have found the “Answer”, some use special herbs (read drugs) to clear their mind, they do seek company, etc. The biggest insight came from the fact that their simple live allows them to totally clear up and free their minds and with that can come a crystal clear focus. They seem to have found the pleasure of simplicity but nothing more or less. I’m trying to see if I could get Bill to give the same lecturer in our office. His message: “keep it simple” is worth sharing.