{"author":"Peter Matthiessen","author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen","total_quotes":28,"quotes":[{"text":"The light irradiates white peaks of Annapurna marching down the sky, in the great rampart that spreads east and west for eighteen hundred miles, the Himalaya- the alaya (abode, or home) of hima (snow).Hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea: seen under snow peaks, these tropical blossoms become the flowers of heroic landscapes. Macaques scamper in green meadow, and a turquoise roller spins in a golden light. Drongos, rollers, barbets, and white Eqyptian vulture are the common birds, and all have close relatives in East Africa.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["beauty","interrelatedness","landscape","light","mindfulness","mountains","nature","sky","snow","spirit"],"id":39101,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["you","nonfiction "],"id":50537,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"My foot slips on a narrow ledge; in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which, finding themselves at the center of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us…the present moment. The purpose of mediation practice is not enlightenment’ it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["breath","enlightenment","fear","holiness","meditation","mindfulness","mountain-climbing","mountains","nature","soul","spirit","summit","wonder"],"id":76642,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"Zen has been called the 'religion before religion,' which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And that phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and a splendorous earth were one. But soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, at the bottom of each breath, there is a hollow place filled with longing. We become seekers without knowing that we seek, and at first, we long for something 'greater' than ourselves, something apart and far away. It is not a return to childhood, for childhood is not a truly enlightened state. Yet to seek one's own true nature is 'a way to lead you to your long lost home.' To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To 'rest in the present' is a state of magical simplicity...Out of the emptiness can come a true insight into our natural harmony all creation. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist', which is only another idea to be discarded like 'enlightenment,' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'God.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["awe","buddhism","childhood","harmony","meditation","religion","spirit","spirtuality","wonder","zen","zen-buddhism"],"id":82681,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"I sit in meditation…and soon all sounds, and all one sees and feels, take on imminence, an immanence, as if the Universe were coming to attention, a Universe of which one is the center, a Universe that is not the same yet not different from oneself: within man as within mountains there are many parts of hydrogen and oxygen, of calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and other elements. ‘You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flows in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars…’(Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditation)The secret of the mountains is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no ‘meaning,’ they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["beauty","breath","buddhism","meditation","mindfulness","mountains","sacred-places","universe","wonder","zen"],"id":104109,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"The sun is roaring, it fills to bursting each crystal of snow. I flush with feeling, moved beyond my comprehension, and once again, the warm tears freeze upon my face. These rocks and mountains, all this matter, the snow itself, the air- the earth is ringing. All is moving, full of power, full of light.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["beauty","holiness","mountains","mysticism","nature","sacredness","wonder"],"id":123647,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"Transfixed by the bright gaze of a lizard, I become calm. This stone on which the lizard lies was under the sea when lizards first came into being, and now the flood is wearing it away, to return it once again into the oceans.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["beauty","evolution","geologic-time","holiness","mountains","nature","ocean","transformation"],"id":204387,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"A far cicada rings high and clear over the river’s heavy wash. Morning glory, a lone dandelion, cassia, orchids. So far from the nearest sea, I am taken aback by the sight of a purple land crab, like a relict of the ancient days when the Indian subcontinent, adrift on the earth’s mantle, moved northward to collide with the Asian landmass, driving these marine rocks, inch by inch, five miles into the skies. The rise of the Himalaya, begun in the Eocene, some fifty million years ago, is still continuing: an earthquake in 1959 caused mountains to fall into the rivers and changed the course of the great Brahmaputra, which comes down out of Tibet through northeastern India to join the Ganges near its delta at the Bay of Bengal.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["beauty","geology","holiness","mountains","mysticism","nature","sacredness"],"id":206164,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can never be a sculpture. It can be elegant and very beautiful, but it can never be sculpture. Captive to facts - or predetermined form - it cannot fly.","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["books","novels","writing"],"id":208939,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"},{"text":"The mystical perception (which is only “mystical” if reality is limited to what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places. All phenomena are processes, connections, all is in flux…have the mind screens knocked away to see there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpenetration of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh….","author":"Peter Matthiessen","tags":["cosmic-energy","holiness","mindfulness","mysticism","pure-experience","sacred","sacredness","wonder","zen"],"id":263680,"author_id":"Peter+Matthiessen"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":28,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}