Stories Teach a Poignant Lesson

Re: “It Took a Mountain to Move This Couple” (May 6), it is interesting that the hikers who were “marching effortlessly” and seemed to have done “nothing more strenuous than cruise the mall” were from a country whose predominant way of thinking is Buddhist. It is also interesting that the section focused on a woman who changed her life by utilizing the Zen Buddhist concept of achieving awareness of every single moment through sitting in silence (“A Life of Accidents, a Quest for Answers”).

Thank you for presenting a poignant lesson that it is often better to sit on the couch and foster concepts like inner-reflection, observation, focus and awareness than to travel halfway around the world at great expense to foster concepts like haste, self-absorption, time-obsession and vanity.

JONPAUL BALAK

Los Angeles