What Is There in the Mountains? On the Ridges Are Many White Clouds. They Give Me Joy Alone, but Cannot Be Sent to You.

What is there in the mountains? On the ridges are many white clouds. They give me joy alone, but cannot be sent to you.

——Tao Hongjing, Written in Response to the Imperial Question “What Is There in the Mountains?”

The poet who wrote this poem, Tao Hongjing, was a famous ancient Chinese medical scientist. During his life he compiled the Bencao Jing Jizhu (Collected Commentaries on the Classic of the Materia Medica). This book is illustrious in the history of TCM and remains one of the classic works that students of Chinese medicine must know.

Tao Hongjing wrote that his motive in compiling the Bencao Jing Jizhu was his distress at “the flight and migration of Emperor Xian, the flight of Emperor Huai of Jin, the burning and destruction of books, not one in a thousand surviving.” So he settled down and, on the basis of the Shennong Bencaojing, added 365 more herbs for a total of 730, compiling the Bencao Jing Jizhu.

Tao Hongjing's works have high practical value; the clinical efficacy of the herbs he recorded is mostly reliable. He not only included twice as many herbs as the Shennong Bencaojing but was also the first to record formulas within the herb entries, so his work's position in early Chinese materia medica history is second only to the Shennong Bencaojing.

Tao Hongjing was also an important Daoist figure; he founded the Mao Shan school of Daoism. Tao Hongjing lived in the troubled times of the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties. From age 36 he lived in seclusion on Mao Shan for 45 years and died there at 81. Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, greatly esteemed him and often sought his advice, so contemporaries called him “the prime minister in the mountains.” Tao Hongjing was esteemed by more than one emperor; this poem was written when he politely declined another emperor, Emperor Gao of Qi, Xiao Daocheng, who had urged him to come forth and take office.

In the mountains there is no tolling of bells and dining with cauldrons, no wealth and honor, no life surrounded by a throng like stars around the moon—only leisurely white clouds drifting across the sky as if nothing mattered. To someone sunk in fame and gain, this life is indeed tedious. But to someone who has returned to simplicity, living in such an environment nurtures the heart and character; the joy within can only be felt by oneself and is not worth recounting to outsiders.

Through the dynasties there have always been people living Tao Hongjing's life. Jia Dao's Seeking the Master, Not Finding Him also describes such a recluse's life: ℌBeneath the pines I asked the lad; he said the master had gone for herbs. He is on this very mountain, but the clouds are deep and I know not where.” Another poet, Bo Daoyou, also wrote the poem Gathering Herbs on the Ling Peak, Moved by the Moment: “Range upon range for thousands of li, tall forests border the level fords. Clouds pass and veil the distant hills; wind rises and tangles the wild brambles. The thatched hut is hidden from sight; a cock crows and one knows someone is there. I stroll the path, and everywhere see leftover brushwood. Only now do I know that after a hundred generations there are still people of the age of highest antiquity.”

This is the life I long for. In my life plan, in about ten more years I will probably find a place to live this life too. My son needs an education, which is the only reason I remain in the city. Once his education is complete, I will find a remote corner to spend each day with the white clouds on the ridges, farming, reading, and writing. Of course, this also requires Heaven's favor—that I live that long. The world is unpredictable; I have seen too many young people die in their prime, so I am mentally prepared for an early death too.

As a youth I quite envied Master Hongyi's achievement of “astonishing the realm with his writings at twenty” and also wished to succeed young, so I was quite “ambitious” then. But as I grew older and more experienced, I gradually became increasingly detached from fame and gain, withdrawing from one stage after another, “hiding in my small house and making it my whole world.” Lazy to compete with the world, I have far fewer disputes and enjoy being carefree.

The longer I study medicine and the more deaths I witness, the more I see through the essence of life. Occasionally, alone, staring at the white clouds in the sky, I try hard to imagine what our planet looked like billions of years ago before life appeared, and to imagine the world before humans arose and after humans vanish.

I named my son “Siyu”—thinking of the universe—hoping that when he meets setbacks in the mortal world, his thoughts might leave the human realm for a moment, contemplate the vast, boundless cosmos, contrast it with the trivial right and wrong of the world, laugh at his own insignificant worries, and then feel released and at ease.

But my son seems to have taken to mathematics and cosmophysics because of this name, which counts as “carefully planting flowers that never bloom, carelessly planting willows that shade the way.” I only hope he can spend his whole life tilling the field of the discipline he loves, joyful and forgetting sorrow. The child has grown and become sensible; the other day he said to me, “Dad, once I go to college, you can go live the life you want.” I stroked his head and said to him, “You will always be one of your parents' sources of joy; the happy life we look forward to cannot be without you.”

Mr. Qian Zhongshu said in Fortress Besieged that studying abroad is like breaking out in pox (getting smallpox): once in a lifetime a person must have the rash, and only then is one immune to smallpox. Many things are like “studying abroad” in Mr. Qian's saying: once you have experienced them, you are immune. When people are young and headstrong, few are immune to fame and gain, but after striving and chasing, some become immune for life.

Only someone completely immune to fame and gain can understand the state of mind Tao Hongjing described in “What is there in the mountains? On the ridges are many white clouds. They give me joy alone, but cannot be sent to you.” Though I am untalented, I count myself, barely, among those immune to fame and gain. For the rest of my days I too will go to the ridges to keep company with the white clouds.