I am hermit

I have been walking in the wilderness for about five days now. The weather can be pretty tricky around Tibet in the months of spring. I didn’t have much but I managed to find shelter and stay warm. I kept enjoying the harmony of nature I had been feeling inside my heart since I danced away on new years night.

Let me explain new years night: After the last few hours spent in my house having dinner and meditating I joined the rest of the village for one of the most important new years celebrations. This main event on new years was a ritual dance performed by the highest and most wise monks of the village monastery. This ritual dance has not been altered in our culture for decades, it is a dramatic dance with specific technical details. It is said to dust away the bad karma of the past year and to transform spiritual energies into energies of compassion, ending with the burning of the menacing effigy freeing the future day from the past. It is enjoyed by everyone and is thought to bring merit to all the participants whether performing or attending.

I had learned about this dance and had been practicing myself but this was the first time I danced along to the horns and cymbals. I danced away on my toes turning on my soles for as long as I could hear the music. When I could no longer hear the sounds from the village I turned around to see the slowly soaring smoke of the burning effigy and screamed out loud: “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the sangha, I take refuge in the dharma!” I then proceeded to turn around and walk away from everything in my life, to dedicate my life to practicing meditation, mindfulness and the dharma to escape this world of samsara.

I never looked back…

I was keeping east on my way for some reason I cannot explain. Waking up with the first light from the East and just walking towards the sun. Walking for half of the day, as I collect some herbs, roots and nuts to eat later. Although looking everywhere with my eyes and ears to find a water source, I have not been able to find one in the past three days. Not knowing what kind of terrain might come up in the days to come I am saving up nuts and roots for assurance. When I find a suitable place for shelter and meditation, usually around when the sun is its at its highest, I first purify the area with the juniper branches that had I collected on the way and then meditate during the afternoon until the sun goes down. I end the night with a small dinner, but only enough to give my body the nutrition that would allow me to wander during the morning. Not long after dinner I would go to bed, concentrating my thoughts on mindfulness and compassion. The weather had been favorable enough to sleep outside, making it tempting to spend my nights lying on the roots and looking up to the sky through the branches of the forest trees. I knew most of the types of trees and wanted to fall asleep trying to feel the type of energy different strains emit. So far along this journey, the first night I took shelter beside a young Yunnan pine, second, under a Himalayan pine. On the third night while laying under the Chinese hemlock trying to go to sleep, a thought struck me; the only reason I had knowledge of tree types of the Tibetan forests was because I was a builder from generations of builders that cut down trees just like the ones I have taken refuge under. I was full of shame to have once been apart of cutting down and turning into furniture the trees that today are the most precious aspect, connection and source of energy that gives me the strong connection to natures harmony. No wonder there was no water anywhere to be found, I wouldn’t give me water either!

The fourth day was a gloomy and cloudy one, there was no way of telling what time of the day it was. I kept walking until I came upon a stream. It was the first time I had came across a source of water since I had left the village. Just as I gave up on my craving and search for water, stumbling across a stream made it seem like I was on the right path. Following the stream through a slightly uphill and stony hike all of a sudden rain started to pour down. Not too far ahead was a little waterfall that looked like the source of the stream pouring out the water came from inside the mountain skirt. It was getting darker by the minute and everything around including myself were soaked. I spotted an arc looking piece of rock half hid behind some bushes. It was a little cave with drawings on the walls of protection mudras that I couldn’t tell how long ago they were drawn. Trying to dry off in an empty cave got me to wondering about what had happened to Crazy Uncle.

The person referred to as Crazy Uncle is a hermit that lives by the relatively close caves behind my home town. None of the villagers actually knew who this hermit was, where he came from, or how he came about to occupy a cave in the outer skirts of this Tibetan region. There had always been a wide range of stories about Crazy Uncle circulating from mouth to mouth for as long as I can remember; these stories or presumable accounts had become folktales of the village. Some used to say, he was a tantric practitioner, some a crazy man and some believed that he just wanted to be left alone. A hermit is by definition a person that lives isolated from societies. Living the life style of a hermit is not uncommon among almost all Buddhist schools. Seclusion from society serves to be very helpful on the path to attaining enlightenment and escaping the cycle of rebirth within samsara. The complexity of societies, societal relations and ties take away and waists the time that could be spent fully contemplating on the dharma. Back at the village nunnery’s new library there was plenty texts on Buddhist hermits. I had read about a Chinese Ch’an Buddhist monk in the name of Hsu Yun that lived a hermit life and the poems of Hanshan, a Buddhist-Taoist hermit. Many Buddhists renounce the world and take off leaving all their social ties and lives behind. Not that I had a variety of social ties with many people for me to break apart from and leave behind. I had done the same by leaving my life and village behind and moving on to practice the dharma in solidarity, easing my realization of enlightenment. I guess I am a hermit too!

As I sat in the little cave, unable to go to sleep because of the thunder noises that sounded like a thousand whips cracking in the sky, I found myself lost in thoughts of past sufferings. My mother lost her life giving birth to me and later my father passed when I was at the age of eighteen- these losses brought with them the fear of death and loss of dear ones. I have never had a spouse or children, because I was scared they would die and I would have to go though the same process I went through with the loss of my parents, (mostly my father, as I remember everything so clearly). I had been alone for most of my life and this change in lifestyle isn’t much different. It has only brought me closer to reality through the deep harmonious bond I was able to cultivate with nature through the complete elimination of all worldly distractions, desires, ties.