Welcome! I am a contemplative thinker and photographer from Colorado. In this blog, you'll discover photographs that I've taken on my hiking and backpacking trips, mostly in the American West. I've paired these with my favorite inspirational and philosophical quotes - literary passages that emphasize the innate spirituality of the natural world. I hope you enjoy them!

If you'd like to purchase photo-quote greeting cards, please go to www.NaturePhoto-QuoteCards.com .


In the Spirit of Wildness,

Stephen Hatch
Fort Collins, Colorado

P.S. There's a label index at the bottom of the blog.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Let Your Anxious Self Melt in the Sunlight of Meditation


"Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible.  Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature.  Think of your ordinary, emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun.  If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation.  Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing.  And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature."

Sogyal Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist teacher

Photo:  Long's Peak and Mt. Meeker dissolving in late afternoon light, Westridge, Lory State Park, CO, January 23, 2012

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