Mountain Zen

At twenty-five, activist Cristina Moon faced an impossible task: preparing for the possibility of arrest and torture inside military-ruled Myanmar. Her response? Learning Buddhist meditation. So began what would become a decades-long spiritual path—eventually leading her to a Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Hawai'i with a timeless method of warrior Zen training.

Tian-tai Mountains are famous for their well-known reputation as a residence of saints and immortals. From ancient times adepts engaged in Chinese Buddhism and Daoism all longed for coming to Tian-tai. Richly endowed by nature, the mountain beauty spots produced unique harmonious culture, the striking prototypes of which were vagabond-poets Han Shan (Japanese "Kanzan") and Shi De (Jittoku). Once expelled from Guo-qing monastery Shi De was given a home at Mount Hanshan where Han Shan, his intimate friend and sworn elder brother, had resided for a half of century. Musing on Han Shan's poems ...

Assembled in the form of a “mountain journal,” written during a retreat in the foothills of Mount Tamalpais, CA, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown is Watts’s meditation on the art of feeling out and following the watercourse way of nature, known in Chinese as the Tao. Embracing a form of contemplative meditation that allows us to stop analyzing our experiences and start living in to them, the book explores themes such as the natural world, established religion, race relations, karma and reincarnation, astrology and tantric yoga, the nature of ecstasy, and much more.