Chapter 3
The first time I’d ever taken a good clear look into Buddhism was after reading The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, the book given to me by an honest-to-God authentic Dharma Bum who handed me a copy, saying I reminded him of the characters in this book. I met this man in the middle of Spain (this story of Spain being a whole book in and of itself in which, without even knowing it, I was a crazy zen lunatic totally unconscious of the fact - perhaps the only way to be). I read that book like a child plays with a knife. I idolized Japhy, I connected with Ray. Upon finishing it there was nothing I wanted more than to climb on top of some foreign mountain and pray for world peace. And that’s just what I did.
It was the middle of January and naturally I couldn’t find a stupid enough soul to take an overnight backpacking trip through the freezing cold snowing Idyllwild peaks. Further, I had family literally begging me not to go out there alone. But I was a Bikkhu who could not, by his very nature, be stopped from saying his prayer and cleansing the lost world.
I gathered together my zero degree sleeping bag, an entirely too heavy tent, a bunch of food and water, and my trusty notebook and pen and I drove out to the white wilderness.
Of course, being the impractical and crazy Bikkhu that I am, I got a pretty late start. By the time I got into the lovely town of Idyllwild and made it to the trail head of San Jacinto it was after three o’clock and the sun was beginning its decent. Determined, I started on the nine mile hike - slow and steady as my pack was heavy and the incline was sharp and steady.
When alone, particularly in the wilderness, I talk to myself incessantly. At first practical: “Boy this is a tough hike to do with a big ol’ backpack.” Then emotional: “This air feels good like butterflies and babies.” The philosophically: “To understand no-thingness you must understand nothingness which insists that you must understand somethingness.” The harshly: “Kind of dumb going up to sleep in the snow in the off season and I can’t see any sign of human life in this mountain but me and the mountain lion footprints imprinted in this lonely deep snow - stupid me.” And then insanely: “Are you okay?” “Yeah, these mountain lion tracks are starting to freak me out and I hope it doesn’t snow or rain on me tonight but I’m okay. I should have checked the weather report. Just keep walking.” “Okay, well let me know if you start to get seriously scared.” “I will.” - the insanity coming from the fact that I was not only talking to myself but answering as well. The sun set and it was dark as cave.
I hadn’t walked more than four miles up snowy San Jacinto before it was too dark to see the end of my nose. I was cold and insane, looking closely at the mountain lion prints in the snow that had literally been with me with each step along this lonely path. They were deep prints, clean in the snow, with a great round heel mark and from it protruding phalange prints with no sign of claws because allegedly mountain lions don’t walk around with their claws engaged. But I sure felt the presence of those claws like they were wrapped around my larynx.
It was time to stop and gather my senses and my courage and just sleep away this wild night. I walked a little ways until I came across a pretty flat piece of land on the side that wasn’t fully covered with snow. This would be my home tonight, fit for deep sleep and deeper meditation. I put down my stuff and decided the first order of business was to erect my tent.
When I packed my tent I put the main part of it - the giant fabric - inside my backpack. The heavy poles to prop it up were neatly placed in straps on the outside of the pack. This was a big mistake. I quickly noticed that the poles had at one point slipped from the straps and fallen on the trail and to my bewilderment, I never even noticed! These big old long metals, supplying so much weight tot his pack horse’s back and I didn’t even flinch when they dropped!
I looked around me. It was dark as black - no city lights lighting this poor boy’s path. It was freezing cold - the snow was slowly turning to rock hard ice. It was lonely - at this point I’m not simply talking to myself but yelling and berating myself as well. And I had no way of propping up my beat-up tent. I let out a disparaging cry which my brother the mountain lion surely heard and I reeked of fear which my sister the bear surely smelled in her peaceful hibernation.
I asked myself, “Where is the peace and gentle reflection that Ray felt when he climbed the Matterhorn with Japhy? And why does Ray see little hanging Bodhisattvas when I just see menacing tree branches clinging to monster trunks? And who can meditate in this cold? And was this trip a suicide mission? Why does Buddha’s teachings go on past the only real truth: Life is suffering? And where are these damn tent propper-upper poles?!?”
I walked back a half a mile hoping to find the poles. Upon reaching a lonely bend in the path I simply gave up and turned around. For all I knew those poles could be at the head of the trail.
I didn’t want to meditate - or even try. At this point all I wanted was to have feeling back in my tired fingers. Sleep called to me as the great escape, my only friend. I remembered hearing Houston Smith talking about the six year argument he had with a guru. The guru insisted that you are conscious when you are in a deep, dreamless sleep. The nothingness that comes with this sleep is ultimate peacefulness and samati and we are conscious of it because, if we never had a conscious moment of this nature we would not be able to handle the darkness associated with so much of wakeful life. It’s precisely through the consciousness of nothingness that we attain in dreamless sleep that we find the power to continue. It would be this conscious release, this pervasive nothingness that would be my savior tonight.
It could snow on me at any time, or rain. I thought it would be best to have some kind of shelter at least to keep my sleeping bag dry. I pulled out the tent, skin only, and lay it out. Like a drugged up boy scout I thought the best thing I could do was drape it around me and try to sleep as though it were some kind of blanket. And that’s just what I did. This “blanket” encompassed me and with each breath in I was sucking tent. I lay in this sad scene just waiting for the night to end, thinking this was stupid and tomorrow I was not going to make any attempt to get to the top of this demon mountain but would instead march right back and pick up my poles on the way and enter right back into society and forget all this Buddhist nonsense and become some big-time business man or attorney representing cold blooded killers - trying to bend laws of justice so they can get right back on the streets killing and going crazy. My thoughts were wild and I was insane!
“Forget about that prayer for world peace,” I thought. “This God damn world can burn.”
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