Further Thoughts and Discoveries

One way to realize our embeddedness in nature—what Buddhists call dependent arising or “interbeing”—is through our embodiedness. On the trail, our sense experience, physical exertion, movement through the landscape, and extended time outside all promote awareness of our connection to our surroundings.

In his “Mountains and Waters Sutra,” Dōgen (1200-1253), the founder of Sōtō Zen in Japan, tells us that “The mountains and waters of the present are the presencing spoken of by buddhas long ago.” (而今の山水は、古佛の道現成なり). What does he mean by this?