MEDITATIONS ON A MOUNTAIN

by Phillip Pulfrey

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I lift up mine eyes unto the hills

From whence cometh mine help:

This larger context

Beyond will

Aspiring,

Climbing

Alters perspective and viewpoint,

Liberating the soul

To the power of eternity.

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From my home I look across at this mountain, the ‘Jaman Tooth’: on each day and at each moment the solidity of

this form appears different. Light and atmosphere carve fresh form from this rock.

And thus I meditate on the nature of human reality: on similarity and difference, on constancy and change. All

perception arises from a relation between perceived and perceiver: from time and context. We are born at a certain

place at a certain time, into a context of social values and experience that give rise to a shared narrative that forms

the basis of our reality.

In seeking security and stability we wish to fix what is, in fact, an on-going process. Power and domination

impose and fix certain perception as the Truth rather than encouraging an open awareness and respect that relates

ideas to context and our own perceptions to a larger vision of life in eternity. As I wrote in my poetry book,

‘Awareness’: “True spirituality gives us the distance and perspective to understand the partiality and limits of human

understanding: to see the individual in relation to the whole, and develop the humility of openness and respect.”

Throughout history mountains have evoked many metaphors: do mountains represent a challenge to be overcome

or the presence of the awesome beauty of life?

The ‘Dent du Jaman’

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The mountains speak

In echoes of infinity

Framed by birdsong;

The sound of wind and water,

Orchestrated by moment.

The voice of each

Specific to time and place,

Reverberation of texture and orientation

Echoed in the sculpted form of rock;

The ever–varied resonance of space

Which trace hour and season,

Centuries beyond human reason,

To the very essence of being.

ECHOES OF INFINITY

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The magic of light

Creating

Space and Time,

The essence of the Divine

Becoming

Mountains and sea,

Form and fluidity

Perception creating

Specificity

Here, and now

LIGHT AND FORM

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TIME AND PERCEPTION

Life creates

Awareness

The mechanism of perception

That, through separation

Makes the context of relation

That is form

Time and space,

A momentary embrace

Of here and now

Woven in the tissue of memory

And personality.

A narrative of being,

A way of seeing

That separates and joins

Into me.

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It was in the mountains

That I discovered Life;

Away from human strife:

Dappled light through trees,

The sound of leaves

In the rustling breeze

And birdsong.

Everywhere

Growth and abundance,

Endless variety,

Constant change

And renewal:

Flowing energy

And temporal rhythm

Maintaining harmony.

A delicate balance

Framing eternity

In Time.

CONSTANCY AND CHANGE

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Techniques of prayer and meditation develop the ability stay in the moment and to be aware of sensation rather

than judging it. To be open, rather than imposing our ideas. Awareness or Mindfulness, as expressed in Buddhist

teaching, helps us to view experience in relation to our reaction to it, thus allowing us a distance that avoids

judgement:

“Let your awareness drop deep within you like a stone, sinking below the level of what words or acts can

express... Breathe in deep and quiet... Open your consciousness to the deep web of relationship that underlies and

interweaves all experience, all knowing.”

J. Macy, ‘Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age’ (1983)

AWARENESS

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“We all observe the world through our own window. A window is a viewpoint over a horizon, a framework, a piece

of glass that is always tinted to some extent, and it has its orientations and its limitations.”

T. Ramadan, ‘The Quest for Meaning’ (2010)

“All knowledge operates through the selection of meaningful data and the rejection of data that are not meaningful.

It does so by separating (distinguishing or disjointing) and unifying (associating, identifying), and by organizing into

hierarchies (the primary and secondary) and centralizing (around a core of master notions).”

E. Morin, ‘Human Complexity’ (1998)

Our world begins with organisation of sensation into perception. We create our reality through our perception

and our articulation of that expression. This begins with our direct contact with the physical environment and

the sensations the body receives through the senses. The human mind is designed to find patterns and breaks in

patterns and relationships: similarities and differences, repetitions and developments. Through these we create

structures that allow us to function in the present and predict the future. We learn to sift the millions of sense

impressions we receive at every moment ignore the irrelevant and seize on those critical to our survival. We

seek relations of cause and effect to understand how the world functions and how to manipulate it. Our personal

capacities, predilections, experience, education and social context influence our selection of possible perceptions

and the construction of our personal, and social, narrative. Each absorbed in a present of which we are the centre,

focused on our dramatization of events, we forget the fugitive nature of human understanding and the limitations of

our own temporality.

FOCUS

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CREATING CONNECTIONS

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WIDENING OUR PERSPECTIVE

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CHANGING THE VIEWPOINT

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CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN…

The photographs were taken here

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Love is a journey from imposition to acceptance: from self to other, to oneness with Life. It begins with humility.

Through humility we may begin to listen; remain open rather than impose and thus learn respect for life, for the

planet and for others. When we do violence, we always do it to ourselves since we are an integral part of the whole

that is life:

“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,

his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to the affection for a few persons

nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all

living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

Love is the human access to the possibility of other worlds: to open ourselves; to become the beloved and lose

ourselves in union, outside time and partiality. It opens the path towards a higher understanding, beyond the self.

ASPIRING BEYOND…

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“Almost every spiritual tradition recognizes that a point comes when two things must happen: man must surrender

his separate feeling “I”, and must face the fact that he cannot know, that is define, the ultimate.”

Alan Watts, ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ (1998)

“We all know more than we allow ourselves to know because of a certain cowardice in face of the inexpressible,

and fear of accepting its effect on us as guide to the nature of reality. Yet those who can persuade themselves to

be guided thus in their pursuit of the totality of truth find themselves rewarded not so much by a surrender of any

significant part of the essential mystery, as by its transformation into something accessible as living wonder.”

Laurens Van der Post, ‘Venture to the Interior’ (1952)

Beyond our selfishness is the impulse of self towards other: in the part’s awareness of the whole. The desire for

transcendence of our human nature; to go beyond ourselves, beyond the limits of time, of space and of death. A

shift of perspective that will change the world, a willingness to give up the security of the known for the unknown.

This takes us into realms of mystery beyond rationality. I believe that this capacity for transcendence is integrated

into our nature: a perception that can free us from our myopic vision: an emotional and spiritual connection and a

creative leap of imagination that takes us beyond ourselves.

Some call this realm God, others Tao, others Gaia. The Romantics sought to touch this mystery through the

Sublime: a man on a mountaintop at the height of a storm, or in a graveyard at the full moon, is brought face to

face with the smallness of his preoccupations and his limitations. The Buddhist monk approaches the same point

from within; waiting until the chattering mind becomes still and existence becomes aware of essence at “the still

point of the turning world”.

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an orig inals production

www.originals.org

© Phillip Pulfrey 2014