If We Were Doomed To Live Forever,

It Is Said In Java That The Tiger's Hearing Is So Acute That Hunters Must Keep Their Nose Hairs Cut Lest The Tiger Hear The Breath Whistle Through Their Nostrils.

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.

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?

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 Secret Of The Mountain 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. I Understand All This, Not In My Mind But In My Heart, Knowing How Meaningless It Is To Try To Capture What Cannot Be Expressed, Knowing That Mere Words Will Remain When I Read It All Again, Another Day.