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~

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Buddhadharma Magazine Mention.

As some of you know, Buddhadharma magazine was working on an article on unaffiliated Buddhist practitioners. I'm not exactly unaffiliated but I do not have a regular sangha for many reasons that I've already mentioned here before. Well, I was approached awhile back to submit a paragraph on the subject. Yesterday the Spring issue arrived and I have been savoring the in-depth article like a bone. I was surprised but excited that they had included my submission. Here is what I said about unaffiliated Buddhists:

There is a long history in Buddhism of hermit monks, which has been lost a bit but can perhaps be seen rising again with the many lone-wolf practitioners around the world. The hermits still studied with others from time to time but knew that it comes down to the individual practicing. After all, the Buddha was just one person meditating off in the woods, he didn't mean to set up a formal religion. Who knows what he'd think of our sanghas today, especially how they are structured in the West. I think monasteries and temples are important to maintain and keep, as they train the next generation of teachers and students looking for more instruction and structure. However, I think one can still fulfill taking refuge in the sangha without having to physically take up space.

James: I just wanted to post something short to thank Buddhadharma for including my remarks within a great article. I am humbled, honored and only hope that my words help in some way advance the discussion. It really is a very in-depth article encompassing several pages and is worth picking up. I really applaud Buddhadharma magazine for taking on the subject of unaffiliated Buddhists in such an inclusive and broad way. It's nice to read something serious on the subject instead of unaffiliated Buddhists being laughed off and treated like they committed heresy.

~Peace to all beings~

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The Way of the Hermit.

I've been contemplating lately on the role of so-called, "Hermit monks" which can still be found in remote areas of the world. We know that monasteries are the traditional venue for Buddhist monks looking to further dedicate their lives to studying and living the Dharma but what of the role of hermit monks? Well I found an excellent documentary on the lives of Chinese Buddhist, mountain, hermit, monks titled, "Amongst White Clouds." It's about an hour and a half but so worth it:Traditionalists might argue that these monks are going "rogue" from the historic path for monks and are thus misguided. However, consider the quote from one of these hermit monks "There are many hearts in this world--the Buddha has a teaching for the heart of every being." This was spoken by a Buddhist Master said to be on the final leg of his liberation who resides in the Zhongnan mountains of China in near solitude.

The majority of these hermits appear to be well practiced in the Dharma and veterans of monasteries and thus able to better practice in a solitary environment. They are not aesthetics in the traditional, pre-Buddhist sense of total denial of food, etc., which Buddha advised against. They eat just enough to remain healthy like most monks, maintain a shelter and do from time to time visit other hermit monks to bolster each other's practice. I hesitate to say that this path is for the average Buddhist who isn't well practiced in the Dharma. For as one of the hermit monks on the mountain states, "Most of the monks here already understand the practice methods, they don't make mistakes. But you must understand the practice. If you don't, you make mistakes and that's nothing but torture."

These hermit monks seem to have reached a point in their practice where they really can't help but wander off into the woods. Historically it was quite common in Buddhist traditions (especially Tibetan Buddhism and Chinese Ch'an or Zen) for monks to wander off to a cave or isolated hut for long periods of deep contemplation. In some branches of Tibetan Buddhism this occurs, however, after about a decade of traditional, monastic Buddhist practice. In some branches of Tibetan Buddhism it is required of monks to do solo retreat for three years and three months.

There are rare cases, however, where younger monks have been recognized as unique in their knowledge, karma and practice of the Dharma to where monastery life is not much of a challenge. In some rare cases it is a distraction for them to further their practice. So sometimes the abbots of those temples send them off to do a solo retreat. This usually is done with an older hermit monk at first but just long enough to get acclimated to the environment/way of life and then they're on their own. Thus the quote about Buddha having a teaching for the heart of every being whether they are an abbot, a senior hermit monk, a younger hermit monk, a novice monk or a lay person.

These men (and one woman--a nun) in this documentary have come to the place where solitude is required to enable their level of near constant meditation and mindful living. Isolation is a very strict, strong and effective teacher in that it forces one to confront that in the end you can't rely upon anyone else for your liberation. Even your fellow monks and practitioners. In practicing the Dharma in isolation one is forced to be with one's thoughts with nothing much to distract oneself from them day and night. The neurotic mind has little to manipulate out of the hermit monks life as silence and raw, naked, confrontation of nature exposes it's futility. Everyday actions take on new meaning when one has no one or no thing to rely upon to distract one from not just practicing Buddhism in general but total, complete, consuming submersion in mindfulness.

Some say they they wander off because they are near enlightenment and therefore where ever they go they are where they need to be. The lessons of mindfulness, of total immersion into mindfulness have carried them outside the monastery walls to reside in the monasteries of old--the forests and mountains. These locations are Earth's first sacred sites and some of the most pure, inspiring and liberating places. It was under a tree, in solo retreat after all where Buddha finally realized liberation.

For these practitioners the spirit of the monastery/sangha travels with them where ever they go. The monastery is everywhere to them including deep in nature where birds, monkeys and other animals are their teachers and fellow practitioners. As well as the trees, caves, waterfalls and rivers. And from time to time many of these hermit monks meet up with one or more other hermit monks in the area to discuss their practice with each other and stay on track. In this documentary the monks in these Chinese mountains are roughly an hour and a half to one day's hike away from each other.

I don't see them as radicals, rebels, misfits or heretics but rather as highly evolved spiritual beings who have reached the point of no return in their quest for final liberation. They seem to have come to the conclusion that monasteries can sometimes become havens for stagnation where it can be easy for some to become lulled into a state of spiritual materialism and spiritual laziness. Not unlike the tendency for some students at universities to stay in school for the socializing and status instead of the learning and growing aspects. So It's as if monasteries are universities for Buddhism where most monks are working on their undergraduate degree.

Whereas hermit monks are doing graduate and post-doctoral work, which is often undertaken independently that usually involves study outside of said universities, in the field so to speak and that means these "students" don't interact with the undergraduate students as much. I would venture to guess that a good majority of these hermit monks come back down after a few years of solitary practice to teach at a monastery. Not unlike a post-doctoral graduate returning to their university to teach undergraduates as a professor. Some, however, have been up their for numerous decades are will most likely die on those mountains and in doing so merge into parinirvana.

In "Amongst White Clouds" I really was inspired and educated by the hermit nun up on the mountain who quoted the Lengyan Scripture, which says in part, "Though there are words to speak, none of these are real. Talk and talk, like flowers falling from heaven--It's all worthless. So there is really nothing to say." This was an appropriate statement because it seemed many of the hermit monks didn't have much to say but their shining eyes and broad smiles sure did. One monk said after the camera man asked another question (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) "I've been talking all day with you and still you want more words?"

This same nun said, "All of the great masters, if they hadn't endured some hardship they wouldn't have opened their wisdom gate." I really connected with that particular insight as my hardship with mental illness is in large part what led me to Buddhism. Of course I'm not a Buddhist master but either way there is great wisdom to be adopted by all who follow the Dharma in that statement. No creation, no destruction.

Finally, consider these thoughts from the man [Red Pine] who wrote the book on these hermit monks, which inspired another man to do this documentary, "Amongst White Clouds":

I’ve never heard of any great master who has not spent some time as a hermit. The hermit tradition separates the men from the boys. If you’ve never spent time in solitude, you’ve really never mastered your practice. If you’ve never been alone with you practice, you’ve never swallowed it and made it yours. If you don’t spend time in solitude, you don’t have either profundity or understanding — you’ve just carried on somebody else’s tradition.

~Peace to all beings~

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