Every evening Lao Tzu would go on a walk, and he would choose one of his disciples. Only one could go on a walk with the great master. But there was a golden rule, if you were on a walk with a great Taoist master, you have to be quiet. You were not allowed to speak, not even one word.



One day this young man was going on a walk with the master. And they got to a region of mountains and there was this sunset. And it was one of those amazing gorgeous sunsets.The young man couldn’t help but say ‘Wow what a beautiful sunset.’



He broke the rule. Lao Tzu turned around, returned to the monastery and would never allow that young man on a walk ever again. The young man’s friend asked for the master to allow the disciple to be able to walk with him again.That’s when the master said this very profound explanation.



He said, ‘When that young man said, ‘what a beautiful sunset’, he wasn’t watching the sunset anymore. He was only watching the words.







It was a crisp cold(10 degrees) Febrary day with about 4 inches of snow on the ground, the sky was mostly cloudy and the sun had not peaked over the mountain that I call home yet. around 7:50am when I had finished breakfast and was walking back to my room, my intution, guts,or something, told me to go up the mountain and try to catch the sun cresting over it, I intially thought na, as I’ve become fairly weak and climbing the mountain can be tough for me, and then I thought well I have to go to the bathroom, get my phone, get my camera to take the pictures, etc.. this is what buddhists call papanca, a proliferation of thoughts.



I then remembered the story above, and remembered Ajahn Brahm talking about how he doesn’t keep pictures, and thought to myself, you know what, I don’t need to always try to capture, try to hold life, I don’t need to have to share every experience with other people(oh the irony :P), I’ll let it be, and so I said screw it and passed my dorm to head up the mountain.



This was my 4th or 5th time up the mountain this seclusion, it only takes about 20 minutes to get as far as you can go without trespassing on owned property of the top ¼ of it. Of course with 4 inches of snow it was a little tougher, I was feeling a bit out of breath and tired, but I was also racing the sun, I wanted to get to the top to see it crest over the mountain, I knew it would be a wonderful view on this snowy day.



While heading up I saw a few tracks in the snow, guessing what animals they might be, I am familair with some basic tracks and always keep an eye out to see if I can find new ones. As I came almost to the end I looked up and saw a herd of about 6 deer prancing about the woods, they were going north along the mountain while I was going east up the mountain.



So finally I got to the line of “ no tresspassing” signs and the gate I usually hang out around, and the sun had not crested yet! I had beat it, so I stood there in 4 inches of snow and a slow snowfall of large snowflakes. I watched the clouds over the opposite mountain range across the vally and saw the southern end of the mountain in brilliant sunlight, but the northern end was still in shadow as fast moving clouds moved north and eventually allowed the sun to hit the spot, but for me the sun had yet to crest over the mountain. I could see the large cleared hill top on that mountain that was the farm/manor of some person, covered in snow. Turning around to view the top of the mountain I was on, the snow filled forrest looked almost like a painting in the golden sheen of light that embraced them from a sun I could not see yet.



After about 20 minutes it began, the sun gradually started coming up over the mountain, slowly as the top half of the sun crested the mountain top ,the light got bright to the point where I had to start looking at the mountain just below it, that is when I noticed….



The scene before me felt otherworldy, a bright ,snowy winter wonderland. The snowfall on the ground took on a brilliant golden sheen that glittered. As the sparse and slow moving snowflakes took on a brilliant shine, I could of sworn I saw a rainbow in some of them. I put out my gloved hand and let a few fall on to it. They did not melt for a minute or two and they were large enough that I could see most of their glittering crystaline structure with my own eyes as the sun shown brightly on them.



I closed my eyes as I was engulfed by the sun, wishing good will to all beings and embracing the moment. My monkey mind went quiet and I instantly attained to concentration, watching my breath. There was nothing but my breath, utter silence of mind and environment, and the experience unfolding around me. It was one of the few times in my life so far where I truely felt no existence, just experience. There was no “me” there, to make comments and put this experience into some conceptual framework… there was just experience…This lasted for a little while.



And then the battle began. My mind jumped from wishing it had brought the camera because I felt an overwhelming need to share this experience, to then how I was going to write about this experience, what would I say.. oh yes that will work!, how about that? Na that doesn’t sound right., and then the worry of forgetting all the best parts of the experience before I got back to my room to write about them! The conceptualizing, the proliferating, the “doing” took over, even as I continued to watch this wonderful scene unfold and the sun get higher in the sky. Just like the disciple in that story I went from just experience to a grasping of concepts, in trying to “capture” it, it was lost.



I was no longer “being”… I was “doing”… I was no longer the experience, I was the “doer”, the conceptualizer, the catagorizer. I tried to return to peace, to the present experience, reminding myself of the Buddha’s words “ let be the past, let be the future”, but it was too late.



I was that student…. the student who failed, who said “ wow what a wonderful view”, but for a few minutes I was triumphant, engrossed and enveloped in experience. I was only negative on myself for a short time and then accepted and forgave myself, giving myself metta and knowing that I’m still only human, and still on the path, with a long way to go, but I know I’ll get there one day.



I almost didn’t write this out of restraint to fight against papanca..even as I write this the “doer” is rubbing his hands together in anticipation going “ ooh yes, this will be a good blog post with an insight I should write down to not forget!”. but then I saw in this experience a valuable lesson, not just for myself, but others. Maybe that was just my mind, the proliferating, controling, doing, mind, finding an end run, a way around, an excuse to share the experience, I’m not sure, but my intuition told me to go up that mountain, and it also told me to write this down. It was an experience, this thing called I call “me” was an experience, that shall not soon be forgotten.

