Chapter Nine
School was flying by and I was loving it. One cool thing about philosophy is that it’s the love of wisdom. Thus, to take it on as a major is to love to love wisdom. I mean, how can you hate to love wisdom? It’s contradictory as any loving logic class will tell you. So if you study philosophy you’re knee deep in love and that’s about all I can say about that. I love to love and so loving the love of wisdom is the love of my loving life. And if I wrote that in a letter I’d sign it “Love, Jack,” plain and simple.
One day, while meditating in the alcove, I started thinking about that lonely and frustrating trip up San Jacinto. It wasn’t long after that when I made another go at it, once again alone, but during the summer and starting in the morning. I had decided I needed another chance and, as brutal as that mountain treated this fragile Bikkhu, I missed her and I wanted to get to the top and really lay down some sincere prayers. I figured the world was in dire need of some.
Sitting in the alcove I thought about this second mad trip up San Jacinto - the same intentions, a little smarter as far as planning, the same lonely heart.
I woke up well before the sun, all excited - though a bit nervous as I remembered my big bruised leg and my brother mountain lion. I got in my car and put in the traditional country drive music. Gordon Lightfoot was singing about rainy day people and the humble beginnings of the Canadian Railroad. I sung with him, glad to be alive and glad to give this mountain another ride, hopefully this time pouring positive energy into a despairing world.
When the sun rose I was entering Idyllwild, as tiny as ever but this time sunny and warm. My intention this time was to hike up and down San Jacinto in one day, not spending the night talking nervously to myself and the surrounding trees. Besides, I wasn’t so free this time. I had work the next day. I comforted myself with the idea that, if everything is nothing (like tiny, tiny atoms floating around enormous space), my work didn’t really exist and neither did I so I have nothing to worry about. These thoughts were all for fun because I was caught up in the suffering of the world, the samsara, and thus could only accept these ravings on a theoretical level. My inner pessimist said work is tomorrow and wouldn’t it be nice to breathe this clean air all night? I sighed when I reached the trail head of San Jacinto. It was no longer white with puffy snow. “This is going to be great,” I thought and I stepped outside my car.
It felt so good to get back on that dusty trail and my feet felt so light and free. I started at a rapid pace, nearly dancing up that steep mountain. I started singing old Disney tunes. It must have looked rather strange to the people I was passing by - some crazy Bikkhu boy singing, “Under the Sea” in a loud tenor, hiking up at a rapid pace, all smiles and giggles. I passed up many groups like this, all of which laughed heartily and I just kept flying up that mountain. “:This is so much better than the last time,” I thought. “Today I’m going to shake Siddhartha’s hand.”
About two miles up I came across a nice ranger lady. She smiled at me and then asked to see my permit.
“What permit?” I asked, hoping not to incur some crazy fine or something. I thought for a moment that perhaps Disney tunes were banned on this here mountain trail.
“Before hiking this here mountain you need to go to the ranger station and fill out a day permit so we know you’re up here. I’m afraid I can’t let you go any further without that permit,” she said happy yet serious.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to go back,” I said dejected. “You’re sure I can’t slip by? I promise not to die.”
Her grave face met my puppy eyes and her grave face didn’t budge. I knew the answer.
I knew this meant two miles back and two miles up just to get to this same point, still not even a quarter way up this giant mountain. I turned around and headed back thinking that all I wanted to do was pray for the world and who cares if the rangers know I’m here. If I died I’d die happy.
I passed by the same old groups and they asked why I was headed back. “Well,” they said, “at the rate you walk you’ll be passing us up again. See you then.” I smiled and nodded but thought in a real negative way that this was going to be a very long day and I’d be lucky to make the peak much less summon the strength to make a decent prayer while up there. I started to think that this mountain hated me, forgetting all about the idea that if I didn’t have such a strong desire to reach that top I could enjoy this walk back and have an amazing adventure no matter how far I got. A beautiful Buddhist lesson and I was frustrated and mad, ignorant and blind.
I got to the bottom of San Jacinto, already feeling a bit sore. I’d just walked four miles and gotten nowhere. So I hopped in the car and jetted over to the ranger station. The card took me a whole thirty seconds to complete - thirty seconds for four miles of walking. Why couldn’t I have known of this earlier? No one asked me for one in the middle of dead winter - the time I could have honestly gotten lost or died! But this was all frustration calling and I was failing to notice the clean crisp air and the blue jay calling from over yonder. I put the ranger’s portion of the permit in the permit box and my portion in my pocket. “This is my ticket to the peak,” I thought. “But I’d better hurry because it’s already getting late. Boy, it’s getting hot.”
So I flew back over to the trail head and, once again, started my ascent. My pace was a bit slower than before due to my tiring thighs and calves but I still managed to get the old tune “Under the Sea” back out into the open air, though admittedly without the same blind joy as before. I started sweating as the sun beat down. I was trying to avoid that sun for a while by leaving early but now it was staring me down at the genesis of my climb.
Two miles up I saw that same ranger and, with a perturbed look on my face, I flashed her my permit. She smiled as if to laugh at me and simply said, “Thank you.” In my agitated state I saw her as menacing and hating me. In reality she was doing her job, honestly trying to protect me too. She was following the Dharma of forest rangering. And in ultimate Buddha consciousness she was a part of me, a piece of the ultimate nothingness and a vision of love. If, at the time, I’d taken one minute to forget about my tired legs, my sweaty brow, my disrupted plans, and my general annoyance, I would have recognized that and probably made my and her day much more pleasant and fulfilling. As it was, San Jacinto was once again frustrating me.
In my reflection, I thought about just how it was possible that this ranger was indeed a “part of me and a vision of love.” For one thing, she stood on her own ground with her own two feet while I stood on far different ground with far bigger feet. And I don’t want to wear myself down with cliches and stupid boring nonsense. So what right do I have in calling her “a part of me”? But as I sat in the dark alcove I thought about the essential element in Buddhism, and Christianity for that matter. It’s the journey inward, to connect with the inner “I”. It’s the dark, hidden part of each and every one of us. People fear it because it is dark and hidden and ultimately mysterious. People thus equate it with sin and unconscious madness like killing baby gophers and watching buffalo porno (though I don’t consider either an example of my dark personal desires, per se). But this is not what the inner “I” is.
The inner “I” is the release of all external desires, possessions, fears, loves, and so on and so on. The release of all those things in the world we become so attached to that end up controlling us. The inner “I” is the quiet, the serenity inside each and every human heart that exists for our sake, not ours for theirs. And through connection and harmony with this inner “I” we don’t just retreat into ourselves like crazy hermits, but we actually feel an intense and strong connection with all our surroundings as well as all the millions and billions of other “I”’s in the world. And you feel that oneness, not as a line in a book, but as a great Hegelian Spirit permeating all existence. And through your own incredible depth you know with faithful certainty that all is one. For Christians, the inner “I” is connection to God as He appears within you as the Holy Spirit. It’s deep within your own being.
I wished I would have had this insight as I walked up that mountain, sweaty and discouraged. I wished I would have smiled at this lovely ranger and prayed for her safety as she looked after mine. But I didn’t - egoist, proud youngster that I was - and still am today.
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