February 06th, 2015

Ruminations:  I've been reading about Gary Snyder and his book, Mountains and Rivers without End.  Snyder is much influenced by Zen and its emphasis on meditation which involves at least purposeful attention to the world around us.  This all reminded me of a Zen story (I rather freely interpret it here):  a Zen master said "before I started on a spiritual path, I saw mountains as just  mountains and rivers as just rivers.  When I had started on the path, mountains were no longer just mountains and rivers were no longer just rivers.  When I achieved peace, again I saw mountains as  mountains and rivers as  rivers."  This seems to me to be like something T. S. Eliot wrote in his poem, Little Gidding: 
 "We should not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."


Here are some mountains and rivers to be explored and to be seen:

Triple falls in North Carolina                                       Frenchman Coulee in Washington State