Do not fail
to learn from
The pure voice of an
Ever-flowing mountain stream
Splashing over the rocks.

Do not fail To learn from The pure voice of an Ever-flowing mountain stream Splashing over the rocks.

Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams outspread over the mountains, we are reminded that everything is flowing — going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water.

The stream of the mountains pleases me more than the sea.

Greater than all the joys
Of heaven and earth,
Greater still than dominion
Over all the worlds,
Is the joy of reaching the stream.

The snow on the high mountains is melting fast, and the streams are singing bank-full, swaying softly through the level meadows and bogs, quivering with sun-spangles, swirling in pot-holes, resting in deep pools, leaping, shouting in wild, exulting energy over rough boulder dams, joyful, beautiful in all their forms. No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. This quick, inevitable interest attaching to everything seems marvelous until the hand of God becomes visible; then it seems reasonable that what interests Him may well interest us. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Gently rising hills block the view into the distance; line the wishes and desires of the children, who enjoy the blissful moments of the present without wanting to know what lies beyond. Bushes in bloom, nourishing herbs, and sweet-smelling flowers surround the quiet clear stream in which the pure blue of the cloudless sky is reflected like the glorious image of God in the souls of the children.. .There is no stone to be seen here, no withered branch, no fallen leaves. The whole of nature breathes, peace, joy, innocence and life.

The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.

So his life has flowed
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.

Everything is flowing — going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks … . While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature's warm heart.

The clearest water is born from the journey through the muddiest mountains.

Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested.

For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.

When a stream comes to some stones in its path, it doesn't struggle to remove them, or fight against them, or think about them. It just goes around them. And as it does, it sings. Water responds to What's There with effortless action.