“...experience was static in the valley; it was older than time itself, for time was a thing of but two generations, dated… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Matthiessen says, it “has no… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
For some time I watch the coming of the night? Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Though a few older men cut fingers in time of grief, it is usually the smallest girls who are selected for this… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions?… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake. We tend to daydream all the time, speculating about… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Nen is mindfulness, attention to the present with a quality of vibrant awareness, as if this present moment were one’s last.” — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“The equatorial monsoons which brought a rainy season to the coasts had small effect here in the highlands, from moon to moon,… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“In the boulder at my back, there is a shudder, so slight that at another time it might have gone unnoticed. The… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Tukum is at times forgetful about his pigs, being readily distracted by other children, dragonflies, puddles of water, and wild foods. Nevertheless,… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
And only the enlightened can recall their former lives; for the rest of us, the memories of past existences are but glints… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of present, nothing-but-the-present,… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
The ancient intuition that all matter, all "reality," is energy, that all phenomena, including time and space, are mere crystallizations of mind,… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Zen has been called the "religion before religion," which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith.… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Webster said, ''Time them skeeters get done with that old man, his French blood will be all gone and he will speak… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at extraordinary times, to be of the present,… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“And as the wary dogs skirt past, we nod, grimace, and resume our paths to separate destinies and graves.” — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Alec Wilkinson is a spare, clear, and lucid writer who works in stylistic simplicity with material that is not simple at all. — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Figures dark beneath their loads pass down the far bank of the river, rendered immortal by the streak of sunset upon their shoulders — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“...experience was static in the valley; it was older than time itself, for time was a thing of but two generations, dated by moons… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Matthiessen says, it “has no patience with… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
For some time I watch the coming of the night? Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can be elegant and very beautiful but it can never be sculpture. Captive to… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
“In the book of Job, the Lord demands, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” “I was there!”-surely that is… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
