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A review by lory_enterenchanted
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Did not finish book.
I made it to Crystal Mountain but now I have to take a break. This is a long, slow journey. I feel sorry for the porters, to whom Matthiessen is so condescending. Some gems along the way though.
"'All the way to Heaven is Heaven,' Saint Catherine said, and that is the very breath of Zen, which does not elevate divinity above the common miracles of every day. ... In the United States, before spiritualist foolishness at the end of the last century confused mysticism with 'the occult' and tarnished both, William James wrote a master work of metaphysics, Emerson spoke of 'the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal One ...' ; Melville referred to 'that profound silence, that only voice of God'; Walt Whitman celebrated the most ancient secret, that no God could be found 'more divine than yourself.' And then, almost everywhere, a clear and subtle illumination that lent magnificence to life and peace to death was overwhelmed in the hard glare of technology. Yet that light is always present, like the stars of noon. Man must perceive it if he is to transcend his fear of meaningless(ness), for no amount of 'progress' can take its place. We have outsmarted ourselves, like greedy monkeys, and now we are full of dread." (Oct.9)
"Such unusual gifts [as levitation], whether cultivated or not, may deflect the aspirant from his path to true mystical experience of God, and have never been highly regarded by great teachers; one of the four cardinal sins in the monastic order of the Buddha--after unchastity, theft, and killing, was laying claim to miraculous powers." (Oct25)
"'All the way to Heaven is Heaven,' Saint Catherine said, and that is the very breath of Zen, which does not elevate divinity above the common miracles of every day. ... In the United States, before spiritualist foolishness at the end of the last century confused mysticism with 'the occult' and tarnished both, William James wrote a master work of metaphysics, Emerson spoke of 'the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal One ...' ; Melville referred to 'that profound silence, that only voice of God'; Walt Whitman celebrated the most ancient secret, that no God could be found 'more divine than yourself.' And then, almost everywhere, a clear and subtle illumination that lent magnificence to life and peace to death was overwhelmed in the hard glare of technology. Yet that light is always present, like the stars of noon. Man must perceive it if he is to transcend his fear of meaningless(ness), for no amount of 'progress' can take its place. We have outsmarted ourselves, like greedy monkeys, and now we are full of dread." (Oct.9)
"Such unusual gifts [as levitation], whether cultivated or not, may deflect the aspirant from his path to true mystical experience of God, and have never been highly regarded by great teachers; one of the four cardinal sins in the monastic order of the Buddha--after unchastity, theft, and killing, was laying claim to miraculous powers." (Oct25)