Chapter 15
The early morning was dark and brisk as I got in my car, armed with sandwiches, nuts, water, and Power Bars. I also snuck a journal into the pack and I was ready to go. Today I was going to drive that long, winding 78 two hours until I reached Idyllwild, ready to take on the mighty San Jacinto one more time.
Since my last trek I’d grown in knowledge, experience, and my ambition was unlike it had ever been before. This time I was not concerned, and certainly not consumed, with success. This time I was hiking for the experience itself, whatever that was destined to be. I mean, yes, I wanted to hike. I had desire. But the craving was gone. I was not clinging, I was merely embracing. A Buddhist sage does not reject the world or even deny it. A sage accepts it on a new spiritual level, a level of freedom and genuine experience, all brought about through grand old gnosis, knowledge. I was learning my lessons, still quite a novice, still hunting down the bull, but certainly one step closer than before, certainly on the path even if the destination was not clear.
It was time to set the mood as I pulled out of the driveway. As tradition goes, I popped good old Gordon Lightfoot and turned it up loud and strong and swayed my happy head to classic songs about old Canadian railroad and being a native American (thought incidentally, I suspected that good ol’ Gord was quite European Caucasian - I could be wrong, his name is Lightfoot).
I smiled wide as I realized there is nothing quite like listening to songs about wide and open desert fields. I felt like a cowboy off to lasso a bull. I wanted to reel that bull down, train him good, ride him home and let him go. Then I’d sit around with Paige and Lindy drinking beer and talking about no-thingness and real spiritual experience.
I was ready for this hike, ready to take my way. And I knew I could and I knew I would. I felt like a brave little Bikkhu.
The first thing I did when I drove into beautiful and tall Idyllwild was to go to the ranger station and get myself all the necessary permits and so forth. The sun was rising and the air was cool but heating quickly. The ranger station smelled of pine and not that lowsy fake scent that comes in leaf shaped car air fresheners or secret smelly bathroom corners, but real authentic pine.
After getting my permits I headed in town to pick up some large, plump, organic fruit. The peaches of Idyllwild slide down the throat like moonshine rays over acres of sprouting corn (ah, the farmer’s mind!). As the sun rose through clear light blue sky I could feel that this was my day. I had my legendary fruit and I was ready to go.
I drove to the familiar head of the trail and immediately began my ascent. My feet felt light and my mind felt happy. I started thinking about the two trips to this mountain prior to this and how they are the cause of my being here. Then I started to really consider the great chain of causation. To pick out those two events as causes is to ignore all the events that got me to those two. Plus there’s the fact that someone invented the car I drove, someone told me about the mountains, someone founded Idyllwild, someone worked hard to lay down these winding trails, and so on to infinity. To point to a cause is to ignore the fact that the entire universe is a whole, all woven together into this intricate fabric. The fabric is infinite. It’s hard to grasp infinity because it does seem clear that human beings function within a framework that is “cause and effect” and so we’re anxious to know what caused the effect. When we talk about infinity we talk about something that just is, in and through itself, unaffected from without. And so, the point being, my walking up this magic mountain was bound to happen as it seemed the entire universe, through its eternity, worked to get me to this exact place at this exact time. I was right where I needed to be, necessarily so. With these ramblings in my head I breathed a heavy breath.
As I walked among the towering pines I said a prayer out loud. I said:
“Oh sweet pines
Your needle pricks my heart
And lets me see the sunshine in your veins
May we stop chopping you down
Faster than you can grow
For pricked, your veins leak sunshine
And my heart leaks blood.”
I knew that theoretically capitalism forces environment conservation because if a company uses up all their resources they would not be able to produce and could then make no money. But I didn’t trust people enough to think that they wouldn’t naively commit suicide.
As I sat down on a rock to have a drink of water I realized my mind was racing. It was time to find stillness and become an organic part of my environment. I took some deep breaths and chanted the mantra: “Walking over cliffs with palms open.” Within minutes I was in a more peaceful state.
The sweet breeze on my back, the warm sun on my arms, the dancing trees, the footprints left, the happy hikers passed, the gliding clouds, the air so blue, the sweat on my brow, slowly descending, the sound of shoes digging into the earth. I was following my path. My path. And I was feeling light and heavy at the same time. Like a walking paradox, a living example that reason only tells half the story and the rest is emotional blunder. And yet it’s often the most beautiful part. The pure possibility. The little Bikkhu feeling hope on his lonely search.
I arrived at a sign that said, “San Jacinto Peak, 2 miles”. It was the place I’d arrived at the time before when I looked at the descending sun and sadly turned around. Now it was mid day and I was ready to go. First I sat down to eat.
Raisins and nuts taste so pure and true on a hiking excursion. Every good hiker carries raisins. They are pure one hundred percent energy wrapped in a wrinkled old black pouch. And, boy, they’ve seen life. They’ve gone through growing up. They felt the vital energy, growing by the second, as a big fat juicy grape and they’ve felt death slowly sucking that very vitality away. But they persevered and ended up a shiny old fruit that’s known for taking tired legs up crazy mountains.
As I was popping raisins I noticed a beautiful blonde ranger coming around the bend and then walking up to me. She was young, around my age, and she had that special ranger beauty - a young girl who loves the outdoors, all short tan shorts with protruding tan, muscular legs, high socks and worn down, beat hiking boots.. I was afraid my heart was going to attack.
She asked me how I was and if I planned on going to the top. She noticed the juju beads hung around my neck but I didn’t think she thought anything of it. Then she asked to see my permit.
I felt so proud and sure of myself as I yanked that permit from my bag. I’d covered my bases and in two short miles I’d be up this mountain, overlooking the world. She smiled and wished me a good hike.
I thought about asking her to eat lunch with me but I’m a shy little Buddha-boy - No doubt grounded in my small self and afraid of the world. That’s why I hike and sit and meditate and study and write wild poems. It’s the journey. Figuring out this world takes a long time and it’s such an arduous process. It doesn’t end with a great floating zazen pose and bright flickering Buddha lights. Once you figure it out you come back to the world and you have a cold beer with your buddies. You take your wisdom and experience and you show people and save them from the endless cycle of birth and death, joy and sorrow, and send them along their Bikkhu journey.
My lunch was finished and I was fulfilled. I laid down on a rock in the sun and just felt that lizard life for a good ten minutes. It was warm and soothing, relaxing and serene. While water cleans your skin a good sun bath cleans your heart and lungs and head. It was time to go, time to finish the hike I started three times before in the deep snow. I put on my pack and, knowing it was the only way to go anywhere, took the first step.
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