Green Mountain, White Cloud: A Novel of Love in the Ming Dynasty

Green Mountain, White Cloud by Francois Cheng adds a stunning novel to Cheng's growing body of truly great work. He has now been translated into English addressing Chinese poetics, the written/painting arts of China, the relationship between calligraphy and poetry, friendship, totalitarianism, and now love -- love beyond understanding. One constant in his work are the conflicts between tradition and modernism and the working out of healing through art and love.The binding of tradition and the chaos of modernism interact like Yin and Yang. Green Mountain, White Cloud is a brief novel, of about 200 pages, set in the late days of Ming China just before its collapse and a time where the Chinese were aliens in thier own land. The title of this book comes from the core concepts of Chinese art -- mountains and waters (clouds are a special mysterious form of water). Mountains standing for the Yang energy -- men and their constant strength and clouds for the Ying power of the water and feminine. Water in all its forms has the power of the river and the ocean to flow and change. Mountains give birth the the water and water gives birth the mountains. Possibly the greatest philosophical statment of the Eastern worldview is Dogen's Mountains and Rivers Sutra playing out the the entirety of multidimensional existence in short talk/essay on Buddhist teaching. The import and context of Cheng's novel can be viewed, at a distance, through Dogen's lens. It is a reflection on the teaching process that Cheng follows: to read this Chinese novel written in French and translated into English we must study an obscure text from the Japanese Middle Ages. The story can be read, like the other Cheng novel in English, The River Below -- at several levels. In this book we have:good and evil, loss and gain, masculine and feminine, gradual and transcending enlighment, the Oxhearing stages of the path to enlighenment, Zen koans, human love, Buddhist pure intent, traditional Chinese healing, and Christian love. An interesting part of the novel is the Eastern world crossing paths with the Christian mission. Buddhist concerns for other beings, taoist concepts of dialetics, and Confucian concerns with human character are displayed against the mysterious faith of a couple of Christians and their concern with the Father in Heaven and love for the Son of God. At bottom this is a book about pure love and its great power.

Green Mountain, White Cloud by Francois Cheng adds a stunning novel to Cheng's growing body of truly great work. He has now been translated into English covering Chinese poetics, the written/painting arts of China, the relationship between calligraphy and poetry, friendship, totalitarianism, and now love -- love beyond understanding. One constant in his work are the conflicts between tradition and modernism and the working out of healing through art and love.The binding of tradition and the chaos of modernism interact like Yin and Yang. Green Mountain, White Cloud is a brief novel set in the late days of Ming China just before its collapse and the disaster of colonial control of China lasting until the 1900s.The title of this book comes from the core concepts of Chinese art -- mountains and waters (clouds are a special mysterious form of water). Mountains standing for the Yang energy -- men and their constant strength and clouds for the Ying power of the water and feminine. Water in all its forms has the power of the river and the ocean to flow and change. Mountains give birth the the water and water gives birth the mountains.Possibly the greatest philosophical statment of the Eastern worldview is Dogen's Mountains and Rivers Sutra playing out the the entirety of multidimensional existence in short talk/essay on Buddhist teaching. The import and context of Cheng's novel can be viewed, at a distance, through Dogen's lens. It is a reflection on the teaching process that Cheng follows: to read this Chinese novel written in French and translated into English we must study an obscure text from the Japanese Middle Ages. The story can be read, like the other Cheng novel in English, The River Below -- at several levels. In this book we have:good and evil, loss and gain, masculine and feminine, gradual and transcending enlighment, the Oxhearing stages of the path to enlighenment, Zen koans, human love, Buddhist pure intent, traditional Chinese healing, and Christian love.An interesting part of the novel is the Buddhist/Taoist/Confucian world crossing paths with the Christian mission. Buddhist concerns for other beings, taoist concepts of dialetics, and Confucian concerns with human character are displayed against the mysterious faith of a couple of Christians and their concern with the Father in Heaven and love for the Son of God.At bottom this is a book about pure love and its great power.