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?
Interpretation
The quote reflects the bittersweet nature of achieving one's goals where the fulfillment of a journey can lead to unexpected feelings of regret.
In this quote, Peter Matthiessen expresses a paradox experienced after a transformative journey. While he has safely returned from a beautiful and awe-inspiring adventure, there is a sense of regret that follows, suggesting that the experiences gained during the journey have changed him in ways that bring about a reflection on what was left behind or what could have been. This complex interplay of joy and sorrow highlights how significant experiences can have both fulfilling and disappointing elements.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a graduation speech to reflect on the bittersweet feelings of completing an educational journey.
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!
The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.
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.
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.
It is very important for a priest, in the parish itself, to see how people trust in him and to experience, in addition to their trust, also their generosity in pardoning his weaknesses.
The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?
But there's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn't one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.
Nothing is to be preferred before justice.
Talk of the devil, and his horns appear.
I'm suggesting that we abolish the social function of prisons.
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