"This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no -more meaning here than a gust of snow; such transcience and insignifance are exalting, terrifying, all at once, like the sudden discovery, in meditation, of one's own transparence. Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one's own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness with out life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound. Yet as long as I remain an "I" who is conscious of the void and stands apart from it, there will remain a snow mist on the mirror." - Peter Matthiesson, from "The Snow Leopard."