Rocky Mountain Buddhist Hermit.

Growing up at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, (Colorado) spending decades climbing their heights and summer's backpacking into remote, mountain lakes for a week's stay, has been monumental in helping my Dharma practice.

It is also why I am so attracted to the way of the Buddhist hermit who's monastery is the mountain-tops (or forests) and his sangha the wildlife. Nature teaches you patience, paying attention, doing more with less, appreciating what you have and expecting the unexpected. In short -- it teaches you how to live in the present moment.

In the high mountains, (10,000 ft above sea level and higher) circumstances can change faster than a blink of an eye. The altitude changes everything to where you have to be alert at all times to survive. It can be warm, short's weather down in town during the month of August when we go backpacking; yet you still have to pack winter gear. You can be hiking in shorts and sunshine one minute and the next minute find yourself in a driving snowstorm. I have spent more than one August, summer's day held up inside a tent at 11,000 ft. above sea level, gazing out of the tent at a snow storm settling in around the camp site.When backpacking you take a fold-out backpacking stove (seen above, with fuel canister) to cook freeze-dried food, which isn't gourmet but when eaten after hiking up an 11,000 foot mountain, it tastes better than what any five-star chef in Paris could whip up. That's because you appreciate it more after having busted your ass-off and spent all your energy on putting one foot in front of another, slowly, up and up the mountain. It is the best food you've had all year because it is literally the only food you have. You take care not to let one drop hit the ground because each bite is precious for needed calories. Yet, how much food do we waste at home? Each bite of food is savored mindfully like it was the first meal to cross your lips in ages--even the bowls and kettle are licked clean of sustenance. It teaches you to focus on simply eating and enjoying it.

Everything in the mountains must be done with great care and attention to detail, which, again is why it's a great place to practice and live the Dharma. For example, getting a drink of water entails an entire process of purification pumps and water storage bottle balancing. It's not like flipping on the tap at home; but that water is the best water you'll ever taste because of the attention you put into gathering it. And, you see it as a lot more precious than the water you pour out of the tap at home. You find yourself rationing it out throughout the day because if you guzzle it all at lunch, then you have to hike back up to the glacier to pump some more because you don't ever want to be caught out in the wild without water.

Then there is shelter, which takes on a whole other importance when backpacking. Carrying everything you need for a week on your back means you're near-homeless and that makes you cherish your flimsy tent as though it were a palace. It makes you thankful for a warm place to sleep with some cover over-head. And you begin to realize that you don't need a big house let alone a mansion. I guess I relate so much to these hermit monks because I have lived the last two decades preparing for just such a life. One day perhaps, when, (and if) I feel the time is right, I will disappear into the mountains and build my small hut to spend the rest of my days meditating in. Not out of searching for the, "enlightenment treasure chest" but out of letting go of it.

Not to become some fabled "mountain-top guru." In fact, if you try, and come looking for me to be my student, I will shoo you away because there are much better qualified teachers than this crazy-eyed Buddhist. It's about being an anonymous being living out the rest of his days in the natural world--our true home. A home that humans have nearly abandoned for the accouterments and attachments of city life. We need to reclaim that home. I don't think everyone can or should become a mountain hermit but for me, it's in my karma. I have known from a young age that my life would find me living a life of solitude in the mountains at some point.

I will no longer feel attached to the desires of city life; and the choice will be made for me. I'll leave that city life chaos to more capable hands. At that stage of spiritual life, the best place for me would be in nature, where life exists at it's most basic foundation. A good place to leave this world from when the moment arrives.

~Peace to all beings~

The Nature of Things.

In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

-Genjo Koan

James: How often do we gaze out at a mountain or hill and see them as immoveable and symbols of unchanging constants that stand the test of time. Such views are reflections of the limited nature of our minds. We often see time within specific parameters and that if something stands outside those parameters than we tend to ascribe those things with labels that make them seem imprevious to time or of a separate nature.

Mountains are subtly different over the generations but seem to not change because the changes are so small and slow that our faced paced stream of thinking tends to easily over-look their evolution. For all the pride that humans build up about the perceived perfection and superior nature of our minds, they are quite suseptable to trickery and delusion.

For centuries water was seen as just water and only supporting animals. So imagine the surprise when the first humans gazed deeper into the nature of the life giving liquid and saw a whole world thriving within the tiniest drop. A microscopic world of microbes explode into our vision with just one adjustment in sight.

There is so much that we take for granted and so much we still don't know and might not ever know. I don't think that we are necessarly meant to "know it all." I don't think that knowing everything automatically brings us happiness and comfort. At times knowing more only brings us more suffering and stress. So I take comfort in just being another cog in the wheel. That being said I think there is value in being intellectually curious as well. It's all about balance as we know.

PHOTO: Koolau mountains on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. My wife grew up on Oahu underneath the Koolaus in Kahaluu.

---End of Transmission---

Peacefulness.

Peaceful be heaven, peaceful the earth, peaceful the broad space between. Peaceful for us be the running waters, peaceful the plants and herbs! Peaceful to us be the signs of the future, peaceful what is done and undone, peaceful to us be what is and what will be. May all to us be gracious!

-Atharva Veda 19.9

PHOTO: My wife took this picture in 2003. This lake is up in the tall mountains north of us here in Colorado where we backpack into. It's deep into the forests and high into the mountains. You usually don't see another human being for days up there but you see plenty of animals: Moose, deer, elk, coyote, birds/hawks/eagles/owls, fish, and some bears I've heard but I've never seen one. I have a special spot up there where I sit between dense pine trees and meditate listening to the wind flow through them creating a sound that is like hearing the trees whisper all together in unison. It's pure peace to be up there.

I haven't been up there in a few years because I have gained some weight from the medicine I take and because of those drugs I have a hard time keeping my weight down even when I exercise. This is because the pills act like a fat pill but they are necessary to keep me alive. It takes a lot of work getting up there as you have to carry 40 pound packs on your back with everything you would need to survive for a week. I do hope to return again someday soon.

I guess I say all of this to bring up the point that we can be anywhere we feel like being through meditation and mindfulness on pictures, memories and writings describing the atmosphere and energy of a place. As we know we are interconnected with all places so that like Thich Nhat Hanh says, wherever we are--that is home.

There is something else that I'd like to mention on this topic and that is feeling happy with where we currently find our bodies living. I tend to daydream about traveling to new and exotic places often and forget to see the wonder where I live currently. It is important for me to rediscover the great aspects of where I live. I have a home, live in a realitively stable country, live in a safe place in regards to crime and environmental disasters and get to enjoy slices of nature even in my urban location. There is a delightful, noble pine tree across the street that I can see out my front window as I'm typing. So whenever I gaze upon it mindfully I can easily see myself up at that special place in the mountains and the peace of that pristine land washes over me as if i was literally there at this moment.

I also have animal life right here out my window that I am honored to experience. Yes I don't get to see live moose walking around but I have a wonderful opportunity to watch the little birds eatting at our bird feeder, listen to their joyful songs and watch their adorable antics. I also get to watch the squirrel who comes daily to eat the peanut and hazelnuts that I leave out for him every morning. Squirrels are so cute, full of life and I love to watch how playful they are, watching them flick their bushy tails and jump from tree branch to tree branch. Yes I live in a great place. I do enjoy visiting new places and feeling the greatness of them but I truly am home where ever I find myself.

~Peace to all beings~

Touching Suchness

This is one of my favorite quotes/teachings from the Great Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh:

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"

James:

This has certainly been my experience as well. Some of my greatest teachings, lessons and profound insights have come from nature and the small things that our modern world all too often tramples over as unworthy of our time, energy and attention. For example, I yearn one day to visit the sacred ground of Bodh Gaya (the place where it is said that Buddha obtained Enlightenment) yet I wonder what the Tathatgata would say about my desire and attachment to such zeal? I imagine that he would gently yet convincingly remind me of inter-being--that the Holiness of Bodh Gaya is no further then the end of my nose or the unassuming mock pear tree in my front yard.

He would remind me that the little sparrows that visit our humble abode are no different then the wise monks to be found at Bodh Gaya. They remind me that each moment is precious and that all places, times and people are sacred if we but look deeper into ironically what will be discoved as the obvious.

I am honored, blessed and profoundly thankful to live close to some stunning mountains that are just as stupefying as the most sacred temples. The rushing sound of the breeze blowing through the pine trees in those pristine mountains is no different then the resonating sounds of singing bowls and shrine bells.

There is no other place to be then here--in this moment. All we need or could ever want is right here, right now within us.

The ego desires specialness and religion can often feed into that fervor. It seems sometimes that we think that Enlightenment is discovered in ancient temples or that we expect to see angels or Bodhisattvas to tear the sky and grant us that which is already within us--nothing short of Buddhahood.

Perhaps I will make it one day to the sacred and historic Bodh Gaya but in the mean time I will rest and meditate in the Bodh Gaya of my home, mountains and pear tree. May we all see the sacred temples in all places and Buddha in all beings.

PHOTO: Maha Bodi Temple at Bodh Gaya near the City of Gaya, in the State of Bihar in Eastern India.

~Peace to all beings~