Have You Seen The Snow Leopard? No!

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.

It Is Related That Sakyamuni [the Historical Buddha] Once Dismissed As Of Small Consequence A Feat Of Levitation On The Part Of A Disciple, And Cried Out In Pity For A Yogin By The River Who Had Spent Twenty Years Of His Human Existence Learning To Walk On Water, When The Ferryman Might Have Taken Him Across For A Small Coin.

Amazingly, We Take For Granted That Instinct For Survival, Fear Of Death, Must Separate Us From The Happiness Of Pure And Uninterpreted Experience, In Which Body, Mind, And Nature Are The Same. This Retreat From Wonder, The Backing Away Like Lobsters Into Safe Crannies, The Desperate Instinct That Our Life Passes Unlived, Is Reflected In Proliferation Without Joy, Corrosive Money Rot, The Gross Befouling Of The Earth And Air And Water From Which We Came.

In The Clearness Of This Himalayan Air, Mountains Draw Near, And In Such Splendor, Tears Come Quietly To My Eyes And Cool On My Sunburned Cheeks. This Is Not Mere Soft-mindedness, Nor Am I All That Silly With The Altitude. My Head Has Cleared In These Weeks Free Of Intrusions- Mail, Telephones, People And Their Needs- And I Respond To Things Spontaneously, Without Defensive Or Self-conscious Screens. Still, All This Feeling Is Astonishing: Not So Long Ago I Could Say Truthfully That I Had Not Shed A Tear In Twenty Years.

How Could I Say That I Wished To Penetrate The Secrets Of The Mountains In Search Of Something Still Unknown That, Like The Yeti, Might Well Be Missed For The Very Fact Of Searching?