mountain

I am sitting near the village of Kagbeni, high in the Himalayan mountains, in Nepal. And in front of me, reaching up into the blue sky, is a mountain. Its slopes are a mixture of steep snow and ice, and even steeper rock.

Gazing at this mountain, the feeling of timelessness enters me. It seems the mountain has been there forever, and will remain there for eternity. And this feeling of timelessness brings with it a great peace. The mind becomes still. Troubles melt away.

And yet this feeling of timelessness is still not accurate. Before India crashed into Asia, this mountain did not exist. And one day, perhaps in millions of years' time, the elements will have taken their toll, and the mountain will be no more. Its seemingly permanent rock will have been cracked and broken down, into boulders, into rocks, into pebbles, into dust, and carried away by the Kali Gandaki river, back into the ocean, where once more it will be laid down as sediment, and rest, until another tectonic crash once more turns it into mountain.

And so it is with everything manifest. It comes into being. It endures for a while. And then it is gone, back to whence it came. It is the same with you and me. But we need not be perturbed by this, for the feeling of timelessness, in truth, belongs to that realm whence we came. And the peace, which we feel when we feel the timelessness, the peace is also here within us, even whilst we are a manifest form.

So I give thanks to this mountain, for bringing me back to the feeling of timelessness, and also for reminding me of the great cycle of birth and death, of manifestation and the un-manifest. It is a beautiful dance that we are a part of.