Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits

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Description

In 1989, Bill Porter, having spent much of his life studying and translating Chinese religious and philosophical texts, started to wonder whether the Buddhist hermit tradition still existed in China. On the time, it was once believed that the Cultural Revolution had dealt a lethal blow to all religions in China, destroying countless temples and shrines, and forcibly returning thousands of monks and nuns to a lay life.

But when Porter travels to the Chungnan mountains — the historical refuge of ancient hermits — he discovers that the hermit tradition could be very much alive, as dozens of monks and nuns continue to lead solitary lives in quiet contemplation of their faith deep within the mountains.

Part travelogue, part history, part sociology, and part religious study, this record of ordinary journeys to an unknown China sheds light on a phenomenon unparalleled within the West. Porter’s discovery is more than a revelation, and uncovers the glimmer of hope for the way forward for religion in China.

From 1966 to 1976 the malevolent rage of the Chinese Cultural Revolution struck a devastating blow to all religions in China, destroying countless temples and shrines that had stood for centuries and forcibly returning thousands of monks and nuns to lay life. Bill Porter had been told that the venerable hermetic tradition in China had also succumbed, but he went taking a look anyway. What he found, Taoist and Buddhist monks and nuns living in huts and caves deep within the mountains of central China, is more than a revelation, this can be a glimmer of hope for the way forward for religion in China.

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