Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found not only in Zen literature but in the tales of every major religion. This allegory of a physical mountain for the spiritual one that stands between each soul and its goal is an easy and natural one to make. Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. Some travel into the mountains accompanied by experienced guides who know the best and least dangerous routes by which they arrive at their destination. Still others, inexperienced and untrusting, attempt to make their own routes. Few of these are successful, but occasionally some, by sheer will and luck and grace, do make it. Once there they become more aware than any of the others that there's no single or fixed number of routes. There are as many routes as there are individual souls. Robert M. Pirsig
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about. - Jalaluddin Rumi

  2. The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion. - Alan W. Watts

  3. Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. - Ray Bradbury

  4. Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar - Jim Butcher

  5. Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be. - Bob Dylan

More Quotes By Robert M. Pirsig
  1. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

  2. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth, " and so it goes away. Puzzling.

  3. In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty...

  4. What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua..that's the only name I can think of for it..like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to...

  5. There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to...

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