This is a scene from Hong Mei Park, two pagodas; the Writing Brush Pagoda in the foreground, and the Tianning Grand Pagoda in the background. I have been up both pagodas with my camera in hand and have taken photos from both vantage points. Though they are relatively close to each other, only a few hundred metres separating them, the view is different. That makes me think of how we all see the world differently, must see the world differently because we are each in different spots and any given moment in time.
“To have gone to the top of the mountain, to have completed the ascent, one must finally discern whether one climbed the right mountain. The testimony of others does not count. Only the confirmation of our quite separate psyches will suffice. When one reaches such a pinnacle of clarity, one may then be able to look upon the world with the keen eye, and perhaps even the detachment, of the ancients. (Hollis, Mythologems, pp 79-80)
Looking back on my own life, I see that there have been a good number of occasions when I had climbed up a hill on my journey and found an opportunity to stop for a moment and look out at the terrain. The vantage points allowed me to reflect on where I had arrived at the moment. Was this where I wanted to be? Was this where I was supposed to be? We all do this to some extent. But, how often do we see things we are not satisfied with, things that don’t feel right, and then bury our heads in the sand and pretend that we just didn’t see? I know that I have done this. Yet, to be honest, I have also accepted what I have seen and shifted to follow a different path. Perhaps I need to give a small example.
I had been riding a train with a young woman on my way back to Ottawa while she was on her way back to her home in Saskatchewan. We had been totally immersed in each other for two months. Yet, for some reason, we had arrived at this point of separation. I continued the train ride back to the family home. I got a job, worked and found myself back into a routine of work. Then one evening, it dawned on me that this work was not where I was supposed to be doing. It was only money, not a life. Realising that I was on the wrong mountain, I boarded another train and went back to rejoin the young woman with the intention of committing to a life together, committing to taking the journey on a different mountain.
The mountains that Hollis talks about aren’t all massive, reaching and touching the heavens. Some of them are small and need to be small. The journey is made up of a countless number of micro-journeys, each with its own mountain. We are given many opportunities to wake up and change directions.
