In those times when I cannot yet express this concept of "untamed land,'" I think of blending in. This is because, relying on nothing more than direct perception, I know that it is only in the genuine untamed land that people can ignore the ordinary and discover the divine dancing cranes. The soil nourishes everything; there people can obtain all that they require, especially that sense of comfort which is so elusive. The untamed land is the birth mother of the myriad things. Her offspring abound and can never grow old and decrepit. Her milk flows and becomes the rivers, giving sustenance to the tens of thousands of living spirits as it drains into the ocean.

I walk away along a small road. On this small road there are few footprints, nor does one hear the sound of human voices as it runs directly through this native place of mine. Who doesn't have such a familiar place? People extend their first tender roots into their native land; such places form links with their very pulse. But who can maintain constant attachment to their native place? It was only today that I finally realized that when a person grows up and goes off to some distant place, enters the bustling cities, or plants his feet on the great ocean's further shore, he will still stubbornly maintain: my native place is located at the center of the earth. His entire world begins from and extends outward from that small patch of earth.

I have also seen the mountain ranges and the plains, and gazed out over the boundless great ocean. The vapours exhaled from the swamp lands are so dense, and the breathing of the land is so clear and distinct. The crops of grain, the grasses, the forests; people, gnats, fine steeds; hosts, like species, parasites...they are all intertwined and coexist in one space. I have gradually drawn closer to the enormous shadow of a body.....

The native place points towards the borders of the untamed land. Herein there is a key. Here there is an entrance, a gate. The vines which cover the ground ensnare my hands and feet. Dense thickets of scrub trees block the escape route. Have they waylaid a traveler or a returning life form? I lie down and listen, pressing tightly so that I can feel the movement of the pulse and the warmth of the body. Only in this moment do I relax, because I have found genuine tolerance.

At such times, a person will be profoundly moved. He will be like a tree which has sprouted from a patch of mud. All that he is came first from this place. This is the boundless source that he will never completely exhaust during his entire lifetime. In reality a man is a tree which can move about. His excitement and his desires are all supplied by that patch of earth. He once grew up along with the greenery which surrounded him. Now, so many years have gone by that, when he looks around at the scenes from the past, he will discover that time has changed so much, and yet it hasn't changed things in the least. The greenery, and the barren earth are still there side by side, and the wizened tree and long creepers still enwrap each other. That familiar bird with red-pimpled bill, and the enormous stone mill wheel were discovered together; there was also the beautifully elegant little nest made by the Mongolian lark amid the weeds of the desolate wilderness....to me this native place is everywhere replete with miracles.

A person need only return and he will seek. He only need seek and he will find what he wants. It is such a strange, yet such a simple principle. I need only bend down and pick it up. I lie prostrate on the ground like a tree that wants to put down roots---this yearning has been sullied by being mindlessly parroted time and again. I want to return it to the origins. The neediness of my soul is exactly as fervid and pure as it was in my childhood.

I am like a practiced landscape viewer, narrowing my eyes as I look off into the distance. In this way I can blur the picture and delete many concrete objects. What I see are not individual trees, but rather a panorama of green; it is not one old man, nor one young woman, but rather a dense tableau of human life. All sounds are scattered over the surface of the soil. They meld together and flood past, like the buzz of a bee, like the collapse of a mountain.

I squat down beneath a strong, broad stalk of corn and for a long time watch its leaves like great swords, and the silver floss atop it. I pay special attention to its roots, like claws, or like filament tightly grasping the soil. How luxuriantly it grows, perfect, without flaw! Its heroic spirit is palpable. Voiceless life forms like this one are found everywhere. Together they show a disregard for the death which will come in the future. They have a spirit which is secret and unproclaimed. This is how I gaze upon the stalk of corn just before my eyes.

Today it seems even less likely that anyone will take the mystery of perception seriously. People seem to have no choice but to accept. Information brought by language and pictures piles up like a mountain. The communication technology of the modern world allows a person to squat off to one side and still observe the entire world. Truth and misinformation are strewn abroad in such equal measure that we human beings feel as if bombarded by a deluge of stones. What this damages most is people's organs of perception. What we lose is the basic right to analyze. We are left with only a bitter ordeal. Even if a man now opened his eyes wide, he could not push aside the shapeless blinders. Misapprehension constantly binds, and in the end always forces submission. Traditional "knowing" and "seeing" give to us, but also benighted us. Therefore we must seek a new manner of perceiving and be vigilant over our sight and hearing.

I stand at the centre of the earth and discover that it is forming a body. It supports the rivers and the cities and it allows people of all races, as well as creatures and plants, to grow and recreate everywhere. What is so exceedingly moving is that it preserves a place at the very centre to serve as our native place. With a pack on my back I travel during the day and rest at night. Sometimes I traverse mountains and valleys, other times I sail down the rivers. This piece of land can never be completely traveled and each square inch of it is priceless. A professor from a foreign country said that it was no bigger than a postage stamp, but have I ever come near or bumped into you? An indistinct sensation of self-satisfaction floats through my heart.