卷 · Library
A slow shelf of old voices
The Library is a non-commercial reference archive. It gathers ancient texts, authors, translators, traditions, excerpts, reading notes and contemplative sources connected to Tao, Zen, silence, emptiness, hermit life and inner transformation.
Nothing here is sold. This is not a shop, a school, or a catalogue of answers. It is a place for orientation — a quiet shelf for those who wish to approach old voices slowly, without turning them into decoration, ideology, or spiritual possession.
Some texts arrive as fragments. Some as names. Some as doors. Some as a silence that has survived translation.
Reading Room — Book Shelf
Books, authors, traditions and translators kept side by side, the way old volumes rest on neighbouring shelves.
- 禪
Zen
Direct pointing, sitting practice, the recorded sayings — Bodhidharma, Huang-Po, Dōgen, the Hsin Hsin Ming.
Open →
- 道
Taoism
Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, the usefulness of emptiness, wu wei, the watercourse way.
Open →
- 佛
Buddhism
Impermanence, non-self, attachment, compassion — Buddhism as a slow grammar of attention.
Open →
- 玄
Mysticism
Apophatic and contemplative currents that approach the unsayable from many traditions.
Open →
- 詩
Poetry & Contemplative Literature
Han Shan and the hermit poets, Ryōkan, Bashō, and quiet voices in modern translation.
Open →
- 隱
Hermit Tradition
Lives and writings of recluses who arranged their days around silence and study.
Open →
Reading Room — Film Shelf
Films, documentaries and symbolic cinema by other directors — references kept beside the books.
- 影
Open Stream
A small archive of contemplative documentaries and films freely available elsewhere — Tibet, Red Pine, and others.
Open →
- 象
Symbolic Cinema
A future room for symbolic and contemplative films from other directors — image as a contemplative grammar.
Room in preparation
Reference Pages
Small doors into single texts, authors and traditions. Read one. Let it sit.
Wisdom Texts
Ancient sources — Tao Te Ching, Hsin Hsin Ming, Chuang Tzu, Dōgen, Bodhidharma, Huang-Po, the Zen records, hermit poetry, and related contemplative voices.
Tao Te Ching
Lao Tzu — classical Chinese, 6th–4th c. BCE
The foundational Taoist text. Eighty-one short chapters on the Way, simplicity, non-action, and the usefulness of emptiness.
Hsin Hsin Ming
Attributed to Sengcan, 3rd Chan Patriarch
“Verses on the Faith Mind.” A brief poem on non-preference, the duality of love and hate, and the clear ground beneath both.
Chuang Tzu — Inner Chapters
Chuang Tzu, 4th c. BCE
Stories, dialogues and quiet provocations. The mind as a mirror; the fish trap forgotten once the fish is caught.
Shōbōgenzō
Dōgen, 13th c. Japan
The “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.” Slow, dense fascicles on practice-realization, time-being, and the study of the self.
Bloodstream Sermon
Attributed to Bodhidharma
A short Chan text on direct pointing, mind as Buddha, and the futility of seeking outside oneself.
Transmission of Mind
Huang-Po, 9th c. China
Recorded sayings on the One Mind — neither mind nor no-mind.
Cold Mountain Poems
Han Shan, Tang dynasty
Hermit poetry from the cliffs of T’ien-t’ai. Plain language, sharp as wind.
Records of Chinese Hermits
Various — sources gathered by translators such as Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Lives and conversations of recluses, monks and lay practitioners who arranged their days around silence.
“Few words and much silence is the manner of the Way.”
After Lao Tzu
Excerpts & Notes
Short excerpts, source notes and contextual fragments — kept brief, attributed, and offered for contemplative study, not commentary.
“Thirty spokes share one hub. The usefulness of the wheel lies in what is not there.”
— Tao Te Ching · XI
“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.”
— Hsin Hsin Ming
“The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror — grasping nothing, refusing nothing, receiving but not keeping.”
— Chuang Tzu · Inner Chapters 7
“To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.”
— Genjōkōan · Dōgen
“The mind, in itself, is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind.”
— After Huang-Po
“Knowing how to keep still is the beginning of wisdom.”
A reflection in the spirit of the old masters
Authors & Translators
A slow shelf of figures — monks, hermits, poets, translators — who carried these voices across time.
Lao Tzu
Author, c. 6th c. BCE
Traditional author of the Tao Te Ching. Less a figure than a current.
Chuang Tzu
Author, 4th c. BCE
Taoist storyteller. The dreaming butterfly, the useless tree, the mirror mind.
Sengcan
3rd Chan Patriarch, d. 606
Attributed author of the Hsin Hsin Ming.
Bodhidharma
Founder of Chan, 5th–6th c.
“A special transmission outside the scriptures.”
Huang-Po
Chan master, 9th c.
The One Mind teaching, recorded by his student P’ei Hsiu.
Dōgen
Sōtō Zen founder, 1200–1253
Author of the Shōbōgenzō. Practice-realization as one act.
Han Shan
Hermit poet, Tang dynasty
Voice from Cold Mountain.
Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Translator, b. 1943
American translator of Cold Mountain, the Heart Sutra, the Tao Te Ching, and chronicler of contemporary Chinese hermits.
Thomas Cleary
Translator, 1949–2021
Prolific translator of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist and Taoist texts.
Burton Watson
Translator, 1925–2017
English versions of Chuang Tzu and classical Chinese poetry.
Reading Paths
A few suggested ways into the texts. None of them is hurried. Pick one. Return.
- 樸
Taoist simplicity
Tao Te Ching, then a few quiet passages of Chuang Tzu. Read slowly. Skip what does not yet open.
- 直
Zen directness
Hsin Hsin Ming, the Bloodstream Sermon, fragments of Huang-Po. Short texts, returned to often.
- 山
Hermit tradition
Cold Mountain poems and accounts of Chinese recluses. The mountain as a way of standing inside one's own life.
- 靜
Silence
Sit with one short passage a day. Let the silence around it do most of the work.
- 空
Voidness
The Heart Sutra, the “usefulness of emptiness” chapter, Dōgen on time-being. Empty does not mean nothing.
- 無求
Non-seeking
Read without a goal. The old masters distrusted seekers in a hurry.
“Better a small lamp lit slowly, than a great fire that burns the page.”
A reflection in the spirit of the old masters