Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains

Mountains, psychologists will tell you, can produce a state of reverie in humans who wander among them. So, too, can meditation, the simple act of sitting still and letting go of worries. Most of the world's great religions hold a special regard for both mountains and meditation, but few link them as closely as Buddhism. English entrepreneur, artist, writer, and alpinist Neville Shulman explores the connection in Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains, a fine primer in the techniques of scaling great peaks while exploring the inner mind. "Nothing is possible," he notes, "without three essential elements: a great root of faith, a great ball of doubt and fierce tenacity of purpose." His small book, which weighs in at just more than 100 pages, distills the tenets of Zen Buddhist doctrine and of basic mountaineering. Readers interested in one subject will find themselves drawn to the other by Shulman's good humor and good writing as he recounts his first climb up 15,771-foot Mont Blanc.