I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak of the koan, this one is not different from myself. I know this mountain because I am this mountain, I can feel it breathing at this moment, as its grass tops stray against the snows. If the snow leopard should leap from the rock above and manifest itself before me - S-A-A-O! - then in that moment of pure fright, out of my wits, I might truly perceive it, and be free.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the deep connection between self and nature, emphasizing spiritual awakening through mindfulness and awareness.
In this quote, Peter Matthiessen illustrates the profound relationship between the observer and the natural world, suggesting that true understanding comes from recognizing oneself in the landscape. The 'bare mountain' symbolizes a state of authenticity and clarity, while the snow-covered surroundings represent distractions or illusions. Through meditation and mindful presence, the speaker expresses a longing for a moment of pure perception, which could lead to an awakening, as embodied by the snow leopard's sudden appearance. This realization promotes a sense of freedom and harmony with both self and nature.
In practice
In a mindfulness workshop, when discussing self-awareness and nature.
Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions? For in this pure action, this pure moving of the bird, there is no time, no space, but only the free doing-being of this very moment -now!
Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?
The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.
The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that I have found what I was searching for without ever having discovered what it was.
And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped, like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri.
Visit your soul; don't visit your past.
When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed.' So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.
The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters.
Because racism is not like jealousy or selfishness, it is not a primal urge or a basic instinct, it is a 400-year-old political and economic system that has infected our institutions, our culture and even our thinking.
One thing leads to another? Not always. Sometimes one thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict.
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit.
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