While delving further into my research that revolves around the meaning of mountains in eastern philosophies, I thought about what would make it easier. If only there was a place that has shares its meaning with all, or at least most of the major philosophies/religions. To my luck, such place indeed exists – the mountains of Tibet.

Mount Kailash, for example, is sacred and considered to be the center of the world in four major eastern religions; Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, and Jainism. For these religions, this mountain is what Mt. Olympus was for the ancient Greeks, what Etna was for the Romans, what Mecca is for the followers of Islam. That’s why I would like to center my research mainly around this area. Of course, while studying the importance of the eastern mountains, one cannot only stay at the Tibetan plateau, but this is what I’ll focus on primarily.

Now, considering the scarcity of Buddhist shrines and sacred mountains in Czechia, my field research will mostly be based on literature (mentioned in the previous post), however, our little upcoming ‘pilgrimage’ to the Czech mountains will certainly be beneficial as to how our minds change while on the road and perhaps will bring a little glimpse into what the actual pilgrims experience while on the path, considering the non-representational and the affect theories, works like e.g., A Thousand Plateaus, or Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography could help me create a nice ground for this thought. In the following weeks, I will look further into these works and a few articles that I’ve found considering this subject.

A lonely pilgrim
ventures into the unknown
mountains of his mind

Bibliography:

Anderson, Ben, and Harrison, Paul. Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988.