pine needles in the sun

I'm on a wooded path, high in the hills of Himachal Pradesh, in the north of India, in the foothills of the Himalaya. And I have paused for a moment on this path, in a little sunny clearing. And what really stopped me in my tracks is the smell of pine needles  – the smell of the pine needles in the sun. There is a delicious aroma coming from them. And smelling this, I had to stop, to enjoy it, to appreciate it: this lovely smell.

And what is coming to me, as I sit here, breathing deeply of this aroma, what is coming to me is that it's not really just the smell of the pine needles. It's the smell of the pine needles and the sunshine. It's the combination. And I'm sure a chemist or a biologist would have something to say about why the needles give off their smell when they are warm. But I'm not interested in that technicality.

For me, in this moment, I am appreciating this meeting of the sun and the pine needles, this contact. It is this contact that is creating the pleasant aroma. And so it is with so much in life. We can divide up existence this way and that, we can separate the sun from the pine needle, in our concepts. But the reality is that everything in life is coming into contact with everything else. And that very contact brings about something new. It is really only our conceptual mind that is trying to keep everything apart, separate. As I breathe in the smell of these pine needles in the sun, those concepts have to give way to this delicious reality.