How He Writes p. 5
What It Is Like to Read the Ancients p. 6
Always in These Ancient Chinese Paintings p. 7
On the Road to Buddhahood p. 8
After Thirty Years p. 11
Another Kind of Travel p. 12
Quiet and Seldom Seen p. 13
North Is Nowhere p. 14
A Stillness, Absolute, Profound p. 15
How p. 16
Where I Live p. 17
Nothing Much p. 18
When I Came to Judevine Mountain p. 19
In the Ancient Tradition p. 20
The Progress of Ambition p. 21
Like the Clouds p. 22
The Three Goals p. 23
Bathroom Reading: After a Poem by Han Shan p. 24
After Reading Meng Chiao's "Seeing Off Master T'an" p. 27
What Would It Be Like? p. 28
Which of Them Sees More Clearly? p. 29
No Trail p. 30
Variation on a Theme by Another Recluse Who Also Thought about Ambition and the Self p. 31
Alone and Lonely p. 32
Three Decades p. 33
The Story of Chi Mu Chian p. 34
Another Lie p. 35
As in Ryokan's Brushwork p. 36
You False Masters of Serenity p. 37
The Music of My Own Kind Too p. 38
For Wang Wei p. 39
Home p. 40
An Unassuming Grandeur p. 41
When I Get Depressed p. 42
On My Fifty-eighth Birthday I Write Two Poems - First One: What Keeps Me Here? p. 43
On My Fifty-eighth Birthday I Write Two Poems - Second One: I Am Still Here Because for Example p. 43
The Story of Yu-ling p. 45
Li Po and Wang Wei p. 46
Be Glad p. 47
How and Why You Should Be Circumspect about Your Inner Life p. 48
Dilemma p. 49
So Says Wang Wei p. 50
How It Is p. 51
What's the Difference? p. 52
Bugs in a Bowl p. 53
Such Self-Indulgence and Sloth! p. 54
Ryokan Was a Beggar p. 55
After Li Yi p. 59
My Face p. 60
My Old Woman p. 61
After Reading a Poem from The Book of Songs p. 62
Letter to Ni Tsan p. 63
After Ryokan's Poem Called "White Hair" p. 65
The Cycle of the Seasons p. 66
All of Us p. 67
Trying to Be Who I Already Am p. 71
My Fate Is to Rebel p. 72
Flawed Verse: After a Poem by Han Shan p. 73
An Age of Academic Mandarins p. 74
Note to Myself p. 75
Which? p. 76
Pao Chao and Now p. 77
Teapots as Visions of How Poetry and the World Might Be p. 78
The Sixth of January p. 81
Snowshoes on Judevine Mountain p. 82
Laid Up in Bed p. 83
What Happened Today: The Twentieth of January p. 84
Haiku and Tanka for Shrike p. 85
The First Green of Spring p. 86
After a Walk on a Gray, Drizzling, Cold Spring Morning: The Thirtieth of April p. 87
What I Did Today: The Sixth of May p. 88
During the Warblers' Spring Migration, While Feeling Sorry for Myself for Being Stuck Here, the Dooryard Birds Save Me from My Melancholy p. 89
The End of Winter p. 90
After Reading Ou-yang Hsiu's Poem Called "Spring Walk to the Pavilion of Good Crops and Peace" p. 91
What Good Does It Do? p. 92
All Summer p. 93
Ahimsa Next Time Maybe, or The Taoist Mountain Recluse Stands in His Summer Garden and Says to the Deerfly About to Bite Him p. 94
The Young Woodchuck p. 95
To a Friend p. 96
Old Red Beard, My Friend p. 97
Old Poet Refuses to Leave Home p. 98
One Summer Afternoon Many Years Ago While Visiting My Friend Joel, Who Is Dead Now, at His House Which We Called The Depressive Poet's Rehabilitation Center, I Wrote this Poem p. 99
After Labor Day p. 100
Harmonizing with Tu Fu's "Written on the Wall at Chang's Hermitage" p. 101
Autumn and Crickets p. 102
For Owl Wing p. 103
After Reading Po Chu-i's "Drunk, Facing Crimson Leaves" p. 104
Stillness, O Stillness p. 105
Melancholy Thoughts p. 106
All the Raucous Birds of Summer p. 107
Calling for Po Chu-i p. 108
In Ryokan's Company p. 109
Small Song of Praise at Christmastime for Chickadee p. 110
A Winter Night p. 111
Who I Love p. 115
Quoting T'ao Ch'ien p. 116
On Hearing That These Poems Would Be Published in a Book p. 117
What Issa Heard p. 118
About the Author p. 121