Mountain Inquiry

In the autumn and winter of Qiyun Mountain, the stone steps are dry. This dryness carries a sound—the brief confirmation when the shoe sole meets the stone surface. One step, one echo, like some ancient way of counting. The Danxia cliffs under the cloudless sky reveal a red diluted by the seasons, fading into a more essential ochre. Rocks unmoistened by mist show their textures honestly: which crack began with tectonic movement, which peeling came from years of rain’s persuasion, all clearly visible. The temple’s flying eaves cut through the air, their edges sharp. Without the harmony of moisture, the dialogue between the building and the mountain becomes direct and even exposed—the supporting pillars are not embedded in the rock but grow from the strata like another kind of skeleton. The ashes in the incense burner remain warm; someone devoutly bows with closed eyes, slowly picking incense as if solving an unsolvable formula. The mountain’s temperament is in the incense—subtle but lasting, like a kind of background radiation that takes time to perceive. What Taoism cultivates here may never have been immortality. Look at the relics in the cliff caves: the cinnabar furnace is collapsing, but the chisel marks on the cliff are fresh; the talismans are blurred, but the ferns in the stone crevices are fiercely green. The true meaning of practice is probably learning the mountain’s own grammar—how to stay flexible in the hard Danxia landform, how to find your own rhythm of shedding in inevitable weathering. Passing through Xiaohutian, the light just pours down through the narrow sky gap. The boat-shaped stone chamber carved into the cliff is empty, as if waiting to set sail. Legend says this is where Taoists ascend to immortality, but at this moment, the place is occupied by a few gray pigeons and ubiquitous moss. Those seeking ascension ultimately give the space to the life least in a hurry to fly. This is Qiyun Mountain’s deepest metaphor. At the summit, visibility is almost luxuriously clear. The Heng River is a silver zigzag line; the Huizhou villages on the opposite bank have white walls dazzling in the sun. The clear winter day makes the spatial layers distinct: the red rocks nearby, the pine forest in the mid-distance, and the plains far away are arranged by the light into a progressive symphony. Without the harmony of clouds and mist, Qiyun Mountain finally reveals its true identity as a “geographical transition zone”—where the softness of Jiangnan meets the toughness of southern Anhui, and the clear day makes this seam visible. The mountain’s ability to “gather clouds” is not because it is tall enough, but because it knows how to choose the right altitude—high enough to clearly see the patterns of the world, yet not so high that details blur into vastness. At this height, sorrow and joy return to their original sizes: just slight undulations in the earth’s breathing. On the way down, I met a Taoist gathering herbs. The bamboo basket held honeysuckle and some unknown leaves. “What are these for?” I asked. He smiled, “To cure the mountain’s loneliness.” Then he pointed to the eagle circling overhead, “And also to cure its dizziness from flying too high.” Suddenly I understood. What Qiyun Mountain offers is never answers, but a place where questions can be safely asked. And about suffering—when you stand before the billion-year sediment layers of the Danxia landform, watching the rock layers display their brilliant patterns through weathering, you realize: the deepest wounds are often the pen the earth uses to write beauty. The mountain does not answer because it has woven all responses into its slowly evolving, yet never ceasing to breathe, body.