Concerning Mountains and Haircuts

Photo by David W. Levin; Andes Mountains, Peru, 2024

"Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance, I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers."

— Zen Master Qingyuan Weixin, ~8th century

Some teachings have a way of leaping off the page and earning near-instant, permanent residence in my memory. This is one of them. I came across it some time ago. It so clearly speaks to my own experiences. I’m far from alone in this regard — versions of this quote frequently surface in the writing and dialogues of spiritual seekers/teachers/communicators.

As I interpret the teaching, at first everything in the material and psychological world seemingly “is” in reality what it appears to be. Mountains are mountains. Rivers are rivers. Apples are apples. Money is real and important. Other people are different and separate from me. My emotions are true — why would I feel them if otherwise? — and must be studied and heeded intensely. The future is real, fast-approaching, and in my control.

This is the first, logical, helpful way of experiencing and considering life, at least in the “first half” of it. It jives with our senses and aligns with the way most of us were taught about life and the nature of the world.

Then, after a dose of spiritual curiosity, exploration, and awakening, I come to believe in the oneness of all things. Through a spiritual lens, I begin to embrace non-duality. “Sub ek,” all one. I take comfort in the teachings of interbeing, no birth and no death. Everyone and every thing I encounter is simply an expression, an instance of the one consciousness that is all things. Through a intellectual/materialist lens, I’m attracted to those who bridge the (wholly unnecessary, human-made) divide between science and spirituality — writers/thinkers such as Donald Hoffman, who posits that what we experience in “reality” is not true reality, but only what our senses and thinking minds, thanks to millennia of evolution, interpret to help us survive and procreate. Writers and thinkers who describe matter as energy that’s slowed down, and how consciousness may be a foundational component of the universe, not something that arises inside a small number of creatures blessed with the right combination of atoms. Equipped with these spiritual and intellectual teachings, yes…mountains stop being mountains. Rivers are no longer rivers. My body isn’t me, and my neighbor and I certainly aren’t separate. Everything I see/hear/taste/touch/think is an illusion. It’s all one thing. The universe is experiencing itself.

Then, after sitting with these teachings for a period of time, I seemingly come full circle. Once again mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, yet thanks to the journey, these same expressions carry with them a substantial, unifying truth: an appreciation for the individual forms along with a deeper knowing of their underlying true nature. It’s the ultimate “yes and,” to borrow from the Book of Improv. I appreciate mountains are mountains, and I also know I inter-am with them. Rivers are rivers, but I now see how the rain, clouds, sun, gravity, the spin of our planet — all sorts of non-river elements — come together under the right conditions to manifest as this river. Money exists and can be useful, but is also nothing more than human concepts layered on top of each other. I feel sadness for that person over there who is suffering (empathy), yet now I also feel and act on it as if it were my own (compassion) because, well, it is.

I love this teaching, yet I also wish the living of it was as clear and linear as it presents. How much I would love to say that I used to be an IT’S ALL REAL!/Stage 1 person, but then I moved into the IT’S ALL AN ILLUSION!/Stage 2 level and finally arrived at the supreme IT’S BOTH!/Stage 3 phase of life. How lovely it would be to pronounce, with honesty, that I go through my days seeing the dualistic quality as well as the non-dualistic reality of all I encounter.

The truth is that I bounce between all three of these perspectives. There are moments and situations in which I feel in my heart that wondrous combination of appreciation (of form) and awareness (of deeper truth). Other moments find me interacting with life as if all things are totally separate, usually frustrating and unresponsive to my desires, as if everything I’ve read, learned, and come to believe about the oneness of all things vanished in an instant. And yes, there are moments — fleeting and rather incredible moments most often during meditation — in which I feel the erasure of all forms and all separation. It’s easy to desire having that feeling all the time, but my sense is that it is simply not possible, not part of the program, of being in this incarnation.

What I love most about this teaching is that it speaks in an incredibly positive way about the nature of “coming full circle,” an expression I once detested as I interpreted it as making zero progress in life. For me, “coming full circle” used to mean wasting a lot of time. Falling back to where you began. Failure. On the surface, this teaching suggests coming full circle: mountains were mountains, then they weren’t, now they are again.

But the person at the center of this experience, the one recognizing this pattern and indeed coming full circle, has grown immeasurably. The new recognition of mountains/rivers has so much more behind it than the original recognition. It’s not failure. It is, in fact, the highest form of progress imaginable.

The joy of this teaching comes to me as little lightbulbs of recognition every so often — little things that provide micro-doses of validity to what Zen Master Qingyuan Weixin was talking about and help me feel a sense of progress along the path of transformation.

Like my haircut.

For most of the last 30+ years, I’ve had short hair. Partly conventional, partly habit, partly due to the convenience and consistency of being a busy professional unwilling to deal with a bad hair day. Every so often I would fantasize about growing my hair out, indulging in the symbolism such a move would suggest in my mind. Long hair represented a freedom, a “letting go” I never felt was in my power to have.

Then, about 18 months ago, free from the daily grind, I began growing my hair out. I was committed. And I know I was committed because I thought often about how great it was that I was so committed. After all, I thought, I’m not the same person I was with short hair. I’m different. I’m growing. I’m better. And my hair should reflect how much better I am!

In truth, I wanted to chop it all off several times, especially in the summer. But no. To do that would be, I felt and feared, to revert back to the person I was. The old me. The me I was hoping to transcend.

But then my long hair and I encountered two unexpected things. First was the heat and near-100% humidity of Vietnam. OMG. Second and more helpfully, my hair and I kindly came to the conclusion that I am truly, inarguably, irrefutably changing as a person. Long hair or short hair doesn’t really matter. It’s happening. I do not need visual affirmation that I’m changing for the better (hair or otherwise), nor do I need to be so strident in making myself look different than the person I was before. I needn’t cast in a negative light the person I was before in order to feel good about the person I am now.

So I chopped my hair off. It’s short again. And I love it. I choose it.

At first, I saw my hair as my hair.

Then I came to a point where my hair was not my hair, but rather a symbol of who I thought I was.

But now I see that my hair is once again my hair.

Have there been similar “full circle” moments in your life?

I hope this has been helpful.