Sakya Coming Out of His Mountain Retreat

What distinguishes the tradition of Shussan Shaka, the personalities in whom the re-emergence or obtaining of wisdom occurs, is the unambiguous attempt to solve a significant problem. It refers, ultimately, to a nuts-and-bolts philosophy of compassion. A connection from the ascetic wilds—characterized in every version of the wilderness and the endless landscape affiliations, biosemioses, histories of the idea of nature—to the autobiographical awakening that can be discerned in every great and legendary personality, whether Buddha or Christ. At that juncture the Self becomes painfully aware of something greater than him/herself, and in that perception may go on by turns to understand the challenge of liberation; the infinite individuals and souls whose lives truly are at stake.