Quote by Han Shan: “Whoever reaches Cold Mountain is freed from all care.”

Cold Mountain is both a real place and a state of mind. Han Shan — whose name literally means Cold Mountain — wrote of solitude, simplicity, and withdrawal from social ambition as sources of liberation. To reach the mountain is to stop needing what the world demands you want.

Han Shan is believed to have written during the Tang dynasty, which while culturally brilliant was also riven by the political and military catastrophes of the An Lushan Rebellion and its aftermath. His poetry celebrates withdrawal from the social world's demands — official careers, wealth, reputation — in favor of mountain solitude and Zen insight.

Tang dynasty Chinese hermit poet of the eighth or ninth century, known by the name of the cold mountain in Zhejiang province where he reportedly lived in a cave. His poems, written on rocks and trees according to legend, were collected by a government official and have been enormously influential in Chan Buddhism and Zen art. Gary Snyder's translations made Han Shan's work widely known in twentieth-century America.