Optional Reading Project
Journey to Heavenly Mountain
by Jay Martin
Inside cover, and page 242 Your professor advised on the book. In the long blurb inside the front cover, I give the reasons I think Jay Martin's adventure was unique, and why I assigned the book.
Read
p 1-33 Notice who JM is, on p. 2. He's no sentimental Hippie but a shrink and a professor of government, one of the most learned men alive!
Notice, when he gets to the monastery, that he's entering a China only recently opened to an American like this. Everyone is amazed to meet him, throughout the book. Very funny scene with the monks, the TV set and the World Cup.
55-72 encounters with awful human beings, balancing the goodness he has found. The animal hostages.
105-110 Deep inside China, off the tourist path, an American feels like an "elephant," just as he describes. The near riots of children eager to see the foreigner. You ought to go to China before this mood changes.
*142-169 Taken through the sacred caves by the beautiful Gu Jia Jing.
169-183 After meeting the most spiritual side of China, again he meets the worst. He's almost left to die, marooned by a robber.
194-205 The heart of Buddhism, for Jay Martin
222-231 Enlightenment in everyday surroundings. Very Cagean. My interpretation: China digesting everything that touches it.
239-241 Afterword.
Though Buddhism is so powerful in southern China we could almost speak of a "Buddhist Belt" on analogy with the American "Bible Belt," Northern China and mainstream Chinese culture isn't about Buddhism. To understand the living Chinese religion, which involves the family, you must go to Confucius.