The Snow Leopard
“The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no “meaning,” they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day.”
In the winter of 1973, Mathhiessen accompanied his field biologist friend George Schaller on a five-week expedition and spiritual pilgrimage in Nepal’s Himalayan mountains to study blue sheep, though he was more interested in catching a glimpse of the sheep’s predator: the elusive, mystical snow leopard. Mathhiessen writes precisely and beautifully (though a bit densely) about Zen and Tibetan Buddhist teachings, especially emptiness, impermanence, and acceptance, as he finds a way through his grief for his late wife. (The Snow Leopard won the National Book Award in two categories 1979 and 1980.)