Cold Mountain Zen -

Hanshan: - Hanshan (7th to 9th centuries) is said to have been an iconoclastic Chan/Zen Buddhist monk who dwelled alone in a cave in a rock cliff in the Tiantai Mountains. He wore a birch-bark hat and enjoyed talking to the passing clouds, playing the qin (a seven-stringed zither), and writing his poems on the rocks and walls of his mountain home. His poems were later recorded by the Song dynasty official Lu Qiuyin, who wrote in the preface to his edition, "Nobody knows where Hanshan came from." Over three hundred poems attributed to him have survived. Jack Kerouac dedicated his novel Dharma Bums to him.