Greatest Chinese poet during the Six Dynasties period (220 - 589 CE), one of the biggest poetic influences on Zen and Beat poetry, and in a small group of history’s best poets; stories say Tao Yuanming drained rivers of wine with friends in glades on moonlit nights celebrating the miracle and wonder of moment-to-moment perception. Military/government career drop out, back-to-the-land champion, discoverer of Peach Blossom Spring; he didn’t follow in the steps of any religion, didn’t do any of the recommended practices; he reveled in the fulness of here-and-now working in his garden, reading books, playing the zither, chopping wood and carrying water.
“Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage but now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.”
Chapters:
72. Helpful Fear
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“You ask why I stay in the mountains and I smile without speaking. My heart content, peach blossoms float into the distance. There’s another realm beyond the world of man.”
Chapters:
51. Mysterious Goodness
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“I do not care about a thousand years - let me only make this morning last forever.”
Chapters:
35. The Power of Goodness
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“In these things there lies a deep meaning; yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.”
Chapters:
1. The Unnamed
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“Tao Yuanming, that farmer poet, a man whose good cheer and inner content come from the fact that he has completely made peace with himself and with this good earth... The greatest Chinese poets tried to imitate him, but have not succeeded”
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