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, December 22, 2014

In meditation, thoughts are like waves appearing and disappearing within the vast ocean of Pure Awareness.



"Awareness, born of itself, is primordially pure. It does not come or go. There is nothing to be added or taken away. Leave alone whatever [thoughts] may arise in it . . . Examine the essence of whatever thoughts and adverse circumstances may arise, and see them continuously as waves constantly falling back into the ocean."

Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje,
18th century Tibetan Buddhist teacher





"When awareness arises abruptly from the natural state of the primally pure expanse, that instant of recollection is like finding a gem in the depths of the ocean: this is the dharmakaya, which has not been contrived or made by anyone."

Garab Dorje,
1st century Tibetan Dzogchen teacher





"If we can see that thoughts arise from pure awareness, the nature of mind, then dissolve back into it, like waves rising from and falling back into the ocean, it will be a big step toward inner peace because thoughts will have lost much of their power to harm"

Matthieu Ricard,
French monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition





Photos: (Top) Cow Parsnip and Pacific seacoast, Patrick's Point State Park, CA, July 31, 2014; (Second) Kelp backlit by a setting sun, Patrick's Point State Park, CA, July 30, 2014; (Third) Waves crashing, Patrick's Point State Park, CA, July 30, 2014; (Bottom) Flowers and lighthouse, Trinidad, CA, July 31, 2014.

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