Bill Porter (born October 3, 1943) is an American author who translates under the pen-name Red Pine (). He is a translator of Chinese texts, primarily Taoist and Buddhist, including poetry and
sūtras. In 2018, he won the
American Academy of Arts & Letters Thornton Wilder Prize for translation.
Early life
In an interview with Andy Ferguson for Tricycle Magazine in 2000, Red Pine revealed some of the details of his early life.
His father, Arnold Porter, grew up on a cotton farm in Arkansas. At an early age, Arnold became part of a notorious bank robbing gang that robbed banks from the south northwards to Michigan. In a shoot out with the police, all the gang members were killed except Porter who was wounded and subsequently sent to prison. Nevertheless, after six years he was pardoned by the governor of Michigan and released; an inheritance from the sale of the family farm allowed him to enter the hotel business and to become a multimillionaire. Arnold moved to Los Angeles, where Bill was born in 1943. Later the family moved to a mountainous area near Coeur D'Alene Idaho. Arnold Porter became involved in Democratic Party politics and head of the Democratic Party in California, developing close associations with the Kennedy family.
Red Pine's early life was one of wealth and privilege. He and his siblings were sent to elite private schools, but he considered the schools to be phony and too wrapped in wealth, ego, and power. Eventually his father divorced his mother and subsequently they lost everything. While his brother and sister found it difficult to live with less money, Pine was relieved when this happened.
After receiving a draft notice in 1964, he voluntarily enlisted and served a three-year Army tour in Germany. Pine served in Germany for three years as a medical clerk, which paid for his college education at
UC Santa Barbara where he obtained a degree in anthropology. When he encountered Buddhism, the tenets were quite clear to him and he understood exactly what it was about. Following graduation, he went on to graduate studies in language (Chinese) and anthropology at Columbia University, but dropped out in 1972 to go to the
Fo Guang Shan in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
, a Buddhist monastery.
He studied for a year at Fo Guang Shan with master Hsing Yun.
After a year he left and spent the next two and half years at the
College of Chinese Culture, a smaller, less crowded monastery outside of Taipei in the mountains, where he became a graduate student in philosophy. He took classes in Taoism, Chinese art and philosophy; his future wife, Ku, was a classmate. Unhappy with academic life, he left to go to Hai Ming Temple, a monastery 20 km south of Taipei where he stayed for 2 1/2 years. Wu Ming was the head
Linji Chan monk, Chiang Kai-Shek's personal master. Here he simply studied and meditated: "I had got hold of all these classic texts with both Chinese and English characters and I went through most of the sutras."
Writings
In the years following, he lived in Taiwan and Hong Kong. After 1989 he traveled extensively in China, both as a journalist and on his own. He adopted a Chinese
art name
An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin Chinese), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by artists, poets and writers in the Sinosp ...
, "Red Pine" (赤松 "Chi Song"), after the legendary
Taoist immortal. In 1993, after 22 years in East Asia, he returned to the US.
In 1999 and 2000, he taught Buddhism and Taoism at the
City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
[KJ Interviews: Dancing with Words: Red Pine's Path into the Heart of Buddhism](_blank)
He now lives in
Port Townsend, Washington.
His book ''Road to Heaven'' prompted Edward A. Burger to seek out and study with Buddhist hermits in the
Zhongnan mountains of China and direct the 2005 film ''Amongst White Clouds''.
In 2009,
Copper Canyon Press published his translation of
Laozi
Laozi (), also romanized as Lao Tzu #Name, among other ways, was a semi-legendary Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosopher and author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (''Laozi''), one of the foundational texts of Taoism alongside the ''Zhuangzi (book) ...
's ''
Tao Te Ching
The ''Tao Te Ching'' () or ''Laozi'' is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship and date of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated por ...
''. One of the most noteworthy aspects of this translation is Porter's use of excerpts from China's vast and rich commentarial tradition.
In 2012, he published a translation of the ''
Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra'' (''Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentary.''
Counterpoint, 2012.) It is based on several early Chinese and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
translations including the Chinese translation made by
Guṇabhadra in 443.
2014 brought a re-translation of ''The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse'' (石屋禅师山居诗).
Stonehouse (石屋禅师) was a fourteenth century Zen master who wrote his poems late in life while living alone in a Chinese mountain hut.
''Yellow River Odyssey'' is an account in photographs and text of Porter's early 1990s travels along the
Yellow River
The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
from its mouth at the
Yellow Sea to its source in the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...
. Along the way, Porter visited historical religious sites related to
Confucius
Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...
,
Mencius
Mencius (孟子, ''Mèngzǐ'', ; ) was a Chinese Confucian philosopher, often described as the Second Sage () to reflect his traditional esteem relative to Confucius himself. He was part of Confucius's fourth generation of disciples, inheriting ...
, Laozi and
Zhuang Zhou. The Chinese version was based on 1991 radio scripts for Hong Kong radio station Metro News.
"The Silk Road: Taking the bus to Pakistan" details the author's overland journey with his friend Finn Wilcox from Xi'an to Islamabad by bus, train, and plane. It's a first-person account of scenery, artifacts, and people along the northern route of the Silk Road.
Works
* ''P’u Ming's Oxherding Pictures and Verses''
Empty Bowl, 1983. (translator) ''(see:
Ten Bulls)''
* ''Cold Mountain Poems'' Copper Canyon Press, 1983. (translator) ''(see:
Hanshan (poet))''
* ''Mountain Poems of Stonehouse''
Empty Bowl, 1985. (translator) ''(see:
Shiwu)''
* ''The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma''
Empty Bowl, 1987; North Point Press, 1989. (translator) ''(see:
Bodhidharma)''
* ''Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits'' Mercury House, 1993. (author)
* ''Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom'' by Sung Po-jen. Mercury House, 1995. (translator)
* ''Lao-tzu's Taoteching: with Selected Commentaries of the Past 2000 Years'' Mercury House, 1996. (translator and editor)
* ''The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a Fourteenth-Century Chinese Hermit'' Mercury House, 1997. (translator) ''(see:
Shiwu)''
* ''The Clouds Should Know Me by Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China'' Wisdom Publications, 1998. (editor, with Mike O'Connor; and contributing translator) ''(see:
Jia Dao,
Hanshan Deqing)''
* ''The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain'' Copper Canyon Press, 2000. (translator and editor)
* ''Diamond Sutra'' Counterpoint, 2001 (translator and extensive commentary) ''(see:
Diamond Sutra
The ''Diamond Sutra'' (Sanskrit: ) is a Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Buddhist sutra from the genre of ('perfection of wisdom') sutras. Translated into a variety of languages over a broad geographic range, the ''Diamond Sūtra'' is one of th ...
)''
* ''Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse'' Copper Canyon Press, 2003. (translator) ''(see:
Three Hundred Tang Poems)''
* ''The Heart Sutra: the Womb of Buddhas'' Washington: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004. (translator with extensive commentary) ''(see:
Heart Sutra
The ''Heart Sūtra'', ) is a popular sutra in Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title ' translates as "The Heart of the Prajnaparamita, Perfection of Wisdom".
The Sutra famously states, "Form is emptiness (''śūnyatā''), em ...
)''
* ''The Platform Sutra : the Zen teaching of Hui-neng''
Counterpoint, 2006. (translator with extensive commentary) (see: ''
Platform Sutra'')
* ''Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China'' Counterpoint, 2008. (author)
* ''In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu'' Copper Canyon Press, July 1, 2009. (translator). Awarded 2007
PEN Translation Fund Grant from PEN American Center. Winner of the American Literary Translators Association's inaugural Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize in 2010. ''(see:
Wei Yingwu)''
* ''Lao-tzu's Taoteching: Translated by Red Pine with selected commentaries from the past 2000 years'' revised edition, Copper Canyon Press, 2009.
*''Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom by Sung Po-jen'' Copper Canyon Press, 2011 (translator)
* ''The Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentary''
Counterpoint, 2012, (translator)
*''The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse''
Copper Canyon Press, 2014, (translator)
*''Yellow River Odyssey'' Chin Music Press 2014
*
*''Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past'' 2015 Copper Canyon Press
*
*"The Silk Road" Counterpoint 2016
*"Paradise of the Mind", CITIC Publishing, May 2018, translated by Li Xin
[Li Xin and http://foxue.163.com/18/0425/22/DG981A8E032497U3.html]
*''A Shaman's Lament'',
Empty Bowl, 2021, (translator). See:
Li Sao.
References
External links
Bill Porter (Red Pine)author page at Copper Canyon Press
Many poems translated from Chinese by Red Pine/Bill Porter
Interview with Bill Porter published in TricycleRed Pineauthor page at Counterpoint Press
Interview with Red Pine by Roy Hamricin Kyoto Journal, 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Red Pine
American Buddhists
Buddhist translators
Living people
1943 births
Translators of Taoist texts
Writers from Port Townsend, Washington
20th-century American translators
21st-century American translators
University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
20th-century pseudonymous writers
21st-century pseudonymous writers
Chinese–English translators