The true nature of mountains is that they are mountains. They practice both stillness holding their place and moving with change. Men and women can be reborn through mountains. Ancestors abide in mountains. And mountains disappear the closer you are to them. As Dogen wrote in the Shobogenzo: “They passed aeons living alone in the mountains and forests; only then did they unite with the Way and use mountains and rivers for words, raise the wind and rain for a tongue, and explain the great void.” Realizing fully the true nature of place is to talk its language and hold its silence.
—Joan Halifax in Buddha’s Daughters: Teachings from Women Who Are Shaping Buddhism in the West, page 118