Layman Red Pine At the Bookworm

Bill Porter, known within the Buddhist community as Layman Red Pine, regaled a crowd at the Bookworm with stories of Chinese Zen Masters. An American who came to China years ago out of an interest in Zen Buddhism, he now writes books about Buddhism in China.

Red Pine told us about his journey through the mountains of China visiting Buddhist hermits, who are those monks who retire to mountains and caves for years, even decades, to live a life of austerity and devotion. Those who are able to live that life come out with a “Ph.D. in Zen,” and are able to teach others. He told us about the monasteries and Zen communities, those monks who are the only ones truly practicing communism in today’s China, that is to say, truly doing what Marx called “sharing the means of production.” He told us about the difference between zen and Zen: the former saw religion as the formal practice of meditation; the latter saw everything one does, from eating to shitting to meditating to chopping wood, as Zen—there is no separation.

And, he told us about legendary Zen masters, which is what his latest book is primarily about. The first Bodhidharma developed this particular style of Buddhism with an emphasis on meditation, but after several generations, there were only a handful of people on this path. Then, all of a sudden, its popular exploded within a couple generations to over a thousand devotees, as it proved to be a viable model.

He told us a story of supposedly the greatest Zen master in China of the past few enturies, Sun Lu(?). Both Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai revered him, even while they destroyed temples and ransacked monasteries. One day, Zhou Enlai summoned Sun Lu? To Beijing, instructing him to come by himself. When he arrived and saw that hundreds of people accompanied him, Zhou Enlai was furious. He said, “I told you not to bring anyone!” Sun Lu responded, “I didn’t. These are all ghosts of dead people.” At that moment, they all vanished. After that encounter, Zhou Enlai ordered the protection of temples and monasteries throughout the country.

Red Pine’s own story was fascinating. He came to Taiwan on a graduate fellowship and, upon reading Alan Watts, realized that he was more interested in Buddhism than in academia. He learned Chinese, hung out in monasteries, and realized that he was not cut out to be a monk, for reasons not least of which was the celibacy requirement. He translated Tang Dynasty poetry, read the news on Chinese radio, and then began to track down Buddhist hermits, all the while basically being broke. Nowadays, he is married with kids, living in small town Washington State, still writing and translating, and I think still being broke.