Tang dynasty poet Hanshan once wrote this poem:
"Pearl curtains hang in a jade hall, within sits a lovely maiden. Her beauty surpasses immortals, her radiance like peach blossoms and plums.
"To the east, spring mists gather; to the west, autumn winds rise. Pass another thirty years, and she will become like chewed sugarcane pulp."
It meant that all things were impermanent, that every beautiful thing would vanish like smoke and clouds. Even a woman as lovely as the moon would, after thirty years, become like sugarcane dregs someone had chewed.
Beauty faded easily. So did power and family ties. Yet most people in the world were unwilling to face this problem. Everyone understood the principle, but compared to the pain and anxiety of confronting it, people preferred to wish one another a long life, using this evasion to avoid staring directly at death and impermanence.
This was what Buddhism called one of the "Four Inversions": the "inversion of permanence," seeing "impermanence" as "permanence."
Perhaps Hanshan himself had never imagined that he would become a "hippie." As a Tang dynasty scholar who had repeatedly failed the imperial examinations, he had initially, like Tao Yuanming, found a place to live in seclusion. After his son came of age, he began cultivating himself according to Taoist practices, and ultimately chose Buddhism. Not only did he become a renunciant, he also drifted beyond all social conventions and order.
Family was the smallest unit of society. Hanshan had not severed all worldly ties only because he needed to raise his son. Even monks leaving home depended on the circumstances. Some fought one another to the death over believers and offerings, while others guided and enlightened people.
Besides the inversion of permanence, there were also the inversions of self, purity, and pleasure. The inversion of