Red Pine, a.k.a. Bill Porter, uninspired by the prospect of an academic career, dropped out of Columbia University halfway through a PhD program in anthropology and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks and nuns, he found employment at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and produced more than a thousand programs about his travels in China. His published translations include The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, The Zen Works of Stonehouse (Shih-wu), Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom by Sung Po-jen, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom, The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas, The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng and Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching. He is also the author of Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits.

Red Pine’s recent project, Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China, released in December 2008, is an account of his journey through the heart of China, from Beijing to Hong Kong, on a pilgrimage to sites associated with the first six patriarchs of Zen. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters and translations of the earliest known records of Zen, along with personal vignettes. Red Pine’s account captures the transformations taking place at religious centers in China but also the abiding legacy they have somehow managed to preserve. He brings wisdom and humour to every situation, whether visiting ancient caves containing the most complete collection of Buddhist texts ever uncovered, enduring a six-hour Buddhist ceremony, searching in vain for the ghost in his room, waking up the monk in charge of martial arts at Shaolin Temple, or meeting the abbess of China’s first Zen nunnery.

Red Pine lives in Port Townsend, Washington and is currently working on In Such Hard Times: the Poetry of Wei Ying-wu, to be released in May 2009.