The Dharmas are boundless
I vow to master them
The Buddha’s way is unsurpassable
I vow to attain it
— The Four Vows

It must have been the violence in the air that
summer of 1969, penetrating even the deep remoteness
of the national forest. Was it the inescapable
sibilant hiss of the mountain creek echoing off
the steep hillsides of that little valley or the dreamlike
penetrating light of the full moon making superfluous
the soft circles cast by the kerosene lanterns
set along the path? Perhaps it was the aphrodisiacal
perfume of the dry-heated mountains that drove me
mad, a fragrance of manzanita, blooming yucca and
lupine wafting on a cooling breeze from the not far
distant Big Sur coast.

The monastery gong had sounded the lights-out
tocsin and all was silent as I made my watchman’s
rounds before turning in. I had first drifted to this
beautiful place a couple of years before at the age of
twenty-nine, a wanderer in search of a strengthening
discipline, of self-knowledge and the meaning of life.
I’d been charmed both by the tranquility of the setting
and the highly ritualized lifestyle of the little Buddhist
community and had become a monk, throwing
myself into the rigorous schedule of zen meditation
and trying to practice mindfulness in daily life, my
unfocused energies and unstable emotions craving
structure. Now, though still a beginner in the Soto
Zen tradition of gradual enlightenment, some of my
rough edges had begun to wear down, like the
smoothed pebbles in the rushing stream.
This serene haven had three years previously been
a hot springs resort. Since the late nineteenth century,
when horses and carriages made the tortuous
trip over the sixteen miles of precipitous dirt road,
visitors had come to the sulfurous hot springs that
bubbled forth from the geologically active mountains.
The famous old hotel burned down, but cabins and a
swimming pool remained, as well as the stone building,
once a bar, now turned into a meditation hall by
the new owners, the Buddhists from San Francisco.
Still operated almost half the year as a resort,
Tassajara remained popular, welcoming forty or fifty
guests each week during the hot months, help towards
the mortgage. They came to take the baths in
the tranquil beauty of the remote setting and, in some
cases, also out of a curiosity about Buddhism as
taught by the funny, wise, elderly Japanese teacher

who had attracted such a large following in San Francisco.
The young monks and nuns (we insisted the
monastery be coed) served delicious vegetarian meals,
and vacationers could sample the air of religious decorum
as much or as little as they wished.
As I walked down the path to the baths, the silence
was suddenly pierced by feminine laughter lofting
out from amongst the vapors. Three guests were
having a late soak and I experienced a most unmonkly
mixture of irritation and lubricity. The purity of the
monastery was being invaded, but I tried to calm myself,
remembering the first of the four vows I’d taken
upon my ordainment: “Desires are inexhaustible. I
vow to put an end to them.” But some unholy demon
was whispering at the same moment. Somewhere deep
inside me a misogynist hissed.
She was beautiful in her young slim nakedness:
Southern California tan; long, straight, blonde hair;
no makeup; good teeth; delicate upturned nose; blue
eyes; high cheekbones and forehead—the classical
shiksa type. She and two male friends were in the
plunge together, happily relaxing with a bottle of wine.
Their laughter stopped abruptly at the apparition of
a shaven-headed, black-berobed monk.
One of the guys spoke up timidly. “Oh, is it okay
to be here?”
“Well, it is past closing time,” I replied, but quickly
added, “I know you arrived late, so I guess it’s okay
for you to stay a while longer. I was actually going to
have a quick soak myself so why don’t you just go
ahead and enjoy yourselves.” And disrobing, I entered
the hot water, gliding forward until it was up to my
neck, all the while smiling at the attractive blonde.

After a few embarrassed minutes, they shyly offered
me the bottle. I accepted it in the spirit of not
wanting to spoil their party and this led in turn to the
offering of a moist joint that was lit with difficulty. I
inhaled deeply. They began to question me about the
monastery and its routines. The girl, call her Patti,
smiled at me with wide, innocent-seeming eyes.
“This is such a beautiful place, and it’s so different,
really different. I mean it’s a fabulous summer
resort but at the same time it’s a religious center. All
these little signs you have here in Japanese and English
with different rules on them...got to take your
shoes off indoors, got to bow and chant, and the men
and women all going around with no hair and wearing
funny robes—it’s all so far out. And that sitting
crosslegged on the floor facing a wall just endlessly,
doesn’t it wreck your legs? And getting whacked on
the shoulders, doesn’t that hurt?”
“The kyosaku stick we get slapped with during
meditation? It doesn’t really hurt, you know, just kind
of stings. It’s to wake us up, to help our concentration
during sitting.”
“Well, it seems kind of strange, if you don’t mind
my saying so. And that chanting in a monotone in
Japanese and the eating with your personal set of
bowls and chopsticks all in a set pattern...like, why
do you bother with so many rules, what’s the point?
Don’t you ever get the urge to break them?”
I grinned uneasily at the string of questions,
enjoying being an authority but not wanting to
seem officious.
“Well, I often bend the rules, you know. But the
meditation and all the little rituals you saw

happening, they’re all for the same purpose: to focus
you on what you’re doing at that particular moment.
If you forget and make a mistake it shows that your
mind was wandering.”
“But it all seems so unreal,” she persisted. “I mean,
you’re so cut off here. There’s no TV or movies or
newspapers or even radio. I mean, doesn’t it get,
well, boring?”
Patti took a couple of gliding steps toward the shallow
end of the plunge, exposing two pert conical
breasts. I tried not to stare.
“Not boring, no. Actually we do have our own little
hierarchy, politics and personalities and quiet,
niche-y, power struggles and things of this nature,
even here, I’m sorry to say. We all come to this place
to try to get away from such worldly conflicts and
distractions, but you know how it is. Still, we’re trying
to clear our minds, trying to find out who we really
are, so we’re willing to give up a lot. There are
some things I do miss, like music. But if you take the
chanting you mentioned, I’ve really gotten into it. The
style of doing it actually deepens the voice, and the
meaning is very spiritual. While you’re here you should
really sample some of the lectures on Buddhism and
the meditation. It’s open to everyone, you know. There
are short instruction classes after lunch.”
“Maybe I’ll check it out tomorrow,” said one of
the guys. The other asked, “What’s it like here in
the winter?”
“Well, I’ve been here for two training periods now.
After guest season, from the fall to the spring, the life
gets much tougher. We rise at four-thirty and follow
a strict schedule all through the day and on to ten at

night. We don’t talk unless it’s necessary and the work
we do can be pretty hard. Last winter I was hauling
stones up out of the creek to build the new kitchen.
It got really cold and even snowed a couple of times.
It’s lonely, but if you don’t flip out and go off the
deep end you get used to it. You see, we’re following
a teacher we love and an ancient discipline, trying
to learn how to be better people, so it’s worth
the sacrifice.”
“Hmm, I don’t think I could give up so
much,” Patti commented thoughtfully. “I like my
creature comforts.”
“Well, it’s not for everybody, that’s for sure. But
you know, there’s also a great joy in living in these
mountains. The change of seasons is strong. In the
spring it’s just full of wildflowers and birds. The hills
sort of enfold you then, and if you’re like me you can’t
even stand visiting the city for a few days. A person
can’t stay on here forever, of course, escaping from
the world. No, that’s not the point, but for a time...”
“I think I can feel what you mean about the mountains,”
Patti nodded enthusiastically. “We’re thinking
of doing some hiking tomorrow. Can you suggest
where to go? We’re pretty good hikers.”
“If you like I could guide you on a walk. A nice
trip is over the hill and down another creek to where
it joins up with this one and then back, a sort of circle.
There’s a waterfall. But I should tell you this is hot,
dry country and it’s an all-day hike. It might be too
much for you.”
“No, that sounds really neat,” Patti bubbled, looking
to her companions for agreement. The others,

however, said they planned to take it easy and wanted
to just relax around the pool.
“Well, you and I could go if you like, Patti. I could
pack us picnic lunches and we could get an early
start after breakfast; that way we’d be back in plenty
of time for a bath before dinner.”
“Yeah, that sounds great,” she said, making a little
hop. A wave spread across the plunge.
“Then we should probably get to bed early. I really
have to close down the baths now anyway.” We
climbed out of the water and toweled off and I busied
myself with putting out the kerosene lamps, trying to
keep my eyes off the young woman’s firm body, finally
saying good night under a star-speckled sky.
I tossed and turned in bed. Despite my sincere
attempts at elucidating asceticism, I felt an aching
lust. It certainly was a trial that the Mountain Center
had a busy guest season, in such troubling contrast
to the austere monastic routines of the training periods.
Pretty foxes with small teeth and vulpine ears
traipsed through, and if desires were inexhaustible,
perhaps there was more than one way to put an end
to them. At this particular moment, Patti somehow
came to represent all the women in my life who’d ever
been unattainable. Something to do with development
problems. Not being sufficiently aggressive perhaps?
Trying to puzzle it out, I began to hear the words of
the pedant Nietzsche, whom I’d been reading, an aphorism
he puts in the mouth of the little old woman in
Thus Spake Zarathustra: “You are going to women?
Do not forget the whip.”
A grain of salt was apropos, given the
provenance, but I’d lost the shaker, and so I wrestled

with such illusions, confusions and delusions until
the moon set.
I met Patti after breakfast with two picnic lunches
and canteens of water.
“Got my hiking boots on and I’m all ready,” she
said eagerly, doing a hair flip.
“Well then, off we go,” I replied, striding out ahead.
We ascended the hogback, from which dry-heat
waves already rose, and climbed out of the little valley.
Spiky yuccas thrust forth their phallic blooms,
clinging to the steep hillsides. She was as energetic
as she had promised and we took turns leading, not
talking much until we reached the first crest where
we stopped to have a drink of water.
“You know,” she said, wiping the sweat from the
light down on her upper lip, “we stayed up late last
night finishing the bottle, but I don’t feel tired at all.
Must be this mountain air. We were talking about
some of the things you were saying and both the guys
said they were going to give that meditation a try today,
even if it does seem un-American. But I said
there’s just no way I could get myself to stay all twisted
up like a pretzel.”
I laughed, “Is one of them your boyfriend?”
“Both of them are,” she giggled teasingly. “But
no, not really, we’re just good friends.”
I ignored the joke and became serious. “You know,
when I first started meditating I did have a lot of
trouble with the posture, with painful legs, an aching
back and so on. But I like a challenge so I decided to
master that posture. At first I could hardly wait for
the ending bell to ring. We’re taught to focus on our
breathing, settling the breath in the lower abdomen,

the hara in Japanese. Counting the exhalations up
to ten helps concentration and calms the mind. I forgot
about the pain. One teacher named Maezumi says,
‘True freedom comes in the space between the
inbreath and the outbreath.’”
She looked impressed and I continued. “One time
I got so deeply into my breath the pain suddenly went
completely away; I felt like I was spinning and soaring
high up into the sky and then looking down on
everything ecstatically. The teacher told me this was
a fairly common occurrence and that I shouldn’t get
hung up on it. It just showed that pain and the fear
of pain are two different things. Anyway, now I’m concentrated
on my breathing all the time, whatever I’m
doing, working, eating, hiking or whatever. It’s become
second nature somehow.”
“Strange,” she replied. “It sounds superstitious
to me; and what you say about freedom...for me that
has to do with things like having a long weekend off
from classes, jumping in the car, going to the beach
to watch the guys surf, partying and stuff like that.”
“Well, that’s a kind of freedom, I suppose. But I’m
talking about something else—freedom to be strong.
Do you know what I mean?”
“Sort of. Like, I do feel good if I get a good grade or
maybe if I make somebody feel happy. But I don’t
think about it seriously all that much.”
“You’ve got the right idea there. Thinking’s not
much help. Preaching’s even worse. The scriptures
say we shouldn’t preach at people, shouldn’t sell the
wisdom cheaply, so forgive me if I’m rambling on. But
on the other hand we’re told not to be stingy with the
teaching either.”

Just then a pair of scrub jays came chattering
through the heat to perch on a bush, setting up a
jabbering cacophony.
“They don’t worry about meditation or breathing
or freedom, do they?” Patti laughed. “They just holler
and carry on.”
“Yup, they’re just doing their thing, being bluejays.
They’re already enlightened, with no concepts or dualities
or philosophizing.” And to emphasize my point
I put my palms together and made a slow respectful
bow, at which the jays flew up noisily, leaving behind
a blue-gray feather which Patti picked up and stuck
in her hair, smiling winsomely.
We hiked on and after a couple of hours came
down to the bottom of the next valley and Strawberry
Creek, where we took off our shoes and began wading
and hopping from boulder to boulder. Monarch
butterflies drank fixedly here and there, ignoring us.
The solitude and beauty now descended on and enfolded
us. Patti stopped her giggling and flirting, I
ceased to pontificate, and we went along more calmly
now, quietly enjoying the sensual adventure of hiking
alone together through the wilderness of the Los
Padres National Forest. Finally we came to a primitive
campsite where we poked around, skipped a few
stones in the creek and decided to stop for lunch.
“Sure get hungry climbing up and down these
mountains,” said Patti, tearing into her sandwiches.
“Mmm, sesame butter and honey on crunchy millet
bread, yum!”
“We zennies are good cooks. We do enjoy eating
well, just like you. Maybe you really are one of us,”
I joked.

We resumed hiking as the sun overhead broiled
the redolent hillside madrone. “How’re you doing?” I
asked solicitously after a while.
“Fine, just fine. You say this stream joins up with
the other one?”
“Uh huh, another couple of miles down they come
together and then we follow Tassajara Creek back up
to the monastery. Can’t get lost, and like I said, there’s
a waterfall with a great pool where we can stop.”
“Oh does that ever sound good,” she laughed with
her young woman’s laugh, tentative and beguiling.
Carrying on, comrades on the hot march through
the baking chaparral, we finally heard the sound of
falling water.
“There it is!” she shouted, running ahead, in a
flash stripping down to her panties and plunging into
the icy water. I tossed off my clothes and jumped in
after her, as we frolicked under the falls.
After a while we stretched on the sand to lie side
by side in the sun. I reached over and touched her
hand, but quickly she withdrew it.
“Don’t,” she said softly, “I hardly know you.
Please don’t.”
Then it happened. What had been only lurking in
my mind suddenly surfaced. If she were to react badly,
so what? Despite all my preachments I was still an
outsider in the monastery just like I was everywhere
else. Nobody understood me. I was living in a limbo
prison. I wanted to break free and at the same time
punish the monastery for failing me. In that insane
moment of arrogance acting out, I felt beyond
good and evil. One with Nietzsche. Damning
the consequences.

She tried to pull her hand away but I grabbed her
by the wrist and flung myself upon her, putting my
knees on her shoulders and pinning her. She looked
up with wide eyes. “Please don’t. Please. I’m so thirsty.
Just let me get a drink of water, okay?”
“No! You’re gonna stay put and do just exactly
what I say.”
“Please, just a drink of water.”
“Shut up!” I slapped her hard across the face. I
felt no sexual arousal, only a terrific need to exert full
amoral control. She tried pleading some more, but I’d
closed my mind and heart to any womanly wiles and
slapped her again across the mouth. Whack! That’s
for all the inadequacies I’ve ever been made to feel.
Whack! If there’s such a thing as racial memory, that’s
for all the horrors, the autos-da-fé, pogroms,
gassings... Whack! That’s for all the ones who’ve ever
teased and refused me, monk-fucker!
I must have slapped her four or five times before
she realized there was no use resisting, and then I
felt a tremendous thrilling rush of raw power, an atavistic
violent surge of anger and triumph over everything
that was problematic in my life, especially the
female sex.
“What do you want me to do?” she whimpered.
“Just exactly what I say. First I want to see you
play with yourself.”
“Oh, I can do that.”
I let her sit up and she removed her panties and
began shyly masturbating. But though my heart was
pounding, I did not find that arousing. I reached over
and put my finger inside her, “possessing” the moist
membrane. Feeling her wetness, I sneered. I put my

finger into her anus to explore the delicate tissue there.
Then I pushed my flaccid penis up to her face.
Pleading having proved futile, she placated
and flattered.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, you know. You’re
really something. Hasn’t any girl ever been nice
to you?”
“No,” I lied.
I was so possessed I felt awesomely impressive.
She fellated me erect and I got on top of her. After
only a few perfunctory thrusts, the crazy sordid coupling
was over and I rolled off, unsatisfied with
the conquest.
“Now can I please go to the stream and get a
drink?” she pleaded.
“All right, but don’t try to escape,” I commanded,
not willing to give up control yet. “I’m coming along
with you.”
We went down to the creek where she drank and
bathed as I stood over her, unsure of what was next.
She seemed very self-possessed now, playing up to
me some more about how I was quite a guy, inflating
my ego. Sensing that I seemed to expect something
further, she took the initiative in fellating me again.
Once more I came quickly.
The scene had played itself out and we dressed
and began the trek back to the monastery. I let her
get a good distance ahead and as she at last crossed
the ever-whispering stream to enter the grounds, she
let out a long tremulous wail. I caught up just then
and was surprised to see how bruised her face had
become. I hadn’t realized how delicate she was. Her

piercing cries as she ran off startled me. She acted as
though I’d wanted to kill her or something.
I hurried to my room to put on my robe and went
to the empty meditation hall, so clean and calming in
its stark simplicity, the fluffed-up round black cushions
all in a row. I sat down there to await the consequences.
Eventually someone came in and softly
tapped me on the shoulder.
I got up deliberately, bowed to the cushion and
walked out into the light. A sheriff’s patrol car was
parked up the front driveway and a conference in the
director’s room had just broken up.
“Nothing happened,” I began madly insisting,
alone with the director; was there a touch of prurience
in his questioning? I tried to maintain an air of
evenness, but even in rank denial another part of my
mind wished they would cart me off to prison right
away. I had violated a woman, broken the Mosaic code,
ignobly trampling on every monastic precept and the
ethos of any civilized society, and I wanted to
be punished.
The sheriff soon left the scene and the zen master
was telephoned in the city. Talks went on with
Patti and her friends that I was kept away from. The
teacher appeared the next day and very gently asked
me what had taken place. I began to relate it to him
in fullest detail but dully, without affect. He looked
me straight in the eye, cutting me short.
“I raped her,” I told him in summation. “I used
force to impose my will.”
“Her friends want to see you,” he said.
“What for? Do they want to beat me up? I’m ready
for it if that’s what they want,” I said pathetically.

“No, they don’t feel that way. They’re trying to
understand what happened and they want you
to understand.”
If he felt any anger about what I had done, how
my cowardly dirty dharma combat had jeopardized
and threatened the fragile existence of the fledgling
institution, he never let on. It was ultimately worked
out that if I’d remain with the zen community in the
city while seeing a psychiatrist, Patti would not press
charges. She and her friends left and I departed the
next day for San Francisco.
I kept to my part of the agreement there and visited
the shrink regularly for a couple of months until
he cut me loose. I was in denial with him; we weren’t
getting anywhere. And so, having discharged his obligation
to his friends, he felt there just wasn’t any
point in our going on. Denial is more than a river in
Egypt. I continued my city meditation practice but
was forbidden to return to the mountain center.
“Here we have a mad monk who did a crime and,
fortunately for him, got off lightly,” you may say. “A
little self-knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
Maybe so, but I didn’t really escape without paying
a price. Two roads diverged. I’d penile-ized myself,
spat upon the feminine side of my soul, exiled
myself from the world of women, and I’ve flailed with
that koan ever since.