Tantric Coconuts (14 page)

Ted sat on a rock, amazed to see small fish flirting with deeper waters. He realized that he had not seen anyone on the trail the entire day. He set his backpack on the ground and tried to sift through an unusual swirl of thoughts. On the surface was a dull exhaustion—it had been a long and difficult hike—but after he peeled away the fatigue, there was more. At first he thought it was loneliness, but with Argo nearby,
he realized he could be just as lonely sitting by himself in the living room of his small house in Crossing Trails. Somehow this was different.

Walking away from a barrage of societal conveniences that surround us—everything from credit cards, appliances, and utilities to fast food, hospitals, and dry cleaners—had left him bare and unprotected. All of these conveniences, and hundreds more just like them, were the twigs that formed society’s protective nest. What he felt was not loneliness but isolation: he’d managed to leave the nest. As Ted pondered the seemingly endless list of things he had left behind at the base of the trail, he realized that however intimidating, it was also liberating to be on the other side of the wall that society weaves for our protection.

This isolation made him alert, observant, and independent. As he tried to make sense of it all, he got even closer to the heart of it. What he was experiencing was not simply an emotional response; it was a subtraction from his identity or sense of self. Ted realized that all the fibers of the societal nest also define us—as much as or more than we define ourselves. Outside the bounds of the social contract, he had lost the mostly useless labels and measuring sticks he used to define himself. Ted thought back to Angel at the campsite and realized he was experiencing nothing less than her second realization.
We are not what we think we are
. Who are we when all the labels are peeled away and we stand naked, stripped of our identity, in the forest?

Just as Ted had begun to come to grips with his isolation,
he was startled by the sight of a lone fly fisherman on the other side of the lake, casting slowly and deliberately. Unsure of the proper etiquette for greeting the only other human in the middle of the wilderness, Ted just waved, and the tall man gave a friendly wave back.

Ted felt a grin spread across his face. He’d made it. He felt proud of himself for completing the hike to the summit, but more than that, for the first time in a long time he was experiencing the joy and peace that come from not being the least bit self-conscious about anything. It occurred to him that here, isolated as he was, he was released not only from his former sense of identity but also from worries about conforming or in any way reacting to the myriad complex rules of interaction that form the human social contract. Outside the nest he could fart, spit, yawn, snore, pick his nose, or just lie lazily on the banks of the lake with impunity, indifferent to all the rules that not only prop us up but also wear us down. The chatter in his mind that Angel was trying to get him to observe in her meditation exercises had naturally subsided in the absence of all the ought-to’s and ought-not’s. He was just there—no comment or observation was necessary; no thought mattered.

Something Angel had said to him suddenly registered. He squeezed his eyes shut and watched as amoebalike figures danced across the dark screen of his eyelids. He could hear Angel’s words.
The most natural place to experience the creator is in creation
. If this stillness, this peace, was, as Angel suggested, a manifestation of the creator, then this creator was
a still, silent, and subtle master. Sitting on the bank of creation, watching the sun slowly descend in the early-evening sky with his dog resting beside him, gave Ted a strange sense of his own insignificance—as if he were adrift, alone in deep space or floating on a raft in an endless blue sea. This sensation, however unusual, did not diminish or depress him. On the contrary, as the sense of his own importance faded, the surrounding peace and silence of the mountains seemed to seep into and fill these empty spaces with something of substance.

About ten minutes into the practice, he began to identify with the ripples drifting over the lake. Ted felt as if he were the ripples. Or at least there was no real separation between him and the ripples. What he thought was separateness was illusion. The thought was frightening. However false or illusory his sense of self might be, he did not want to let go of it. Feeling threatened, he opened his eyes, came back to his tried-and-true reality. Ted stood, collected his pack and his dog, and headed back down the trail to his campsite.

With the contents of his pack carefully unloaded and assembled on the ground for easy access, Ted pitched his tent and then built a small campfire in the pit lined with charred stones. Opening a can of soup was difficult. Once he could twist the lid back, he rested it near the coals to warm. Argo staked out a position guarding the front door of the tent.

The evening sun collided with the distant western mountaintops, causing an explosion of purple and crimson streaks across the sky. Ted saw that the fly fisherman from the other
side of the lake—or perhaps it was the world—was headed up the trail toward him, covering ground rapidly. Argo jumped up, startled, and began to bark. The fisherman was carrying a string of freshly cleaned trout in one hand and a stout walking stick in the other. When he was within fifteen feet of Ted’s fire, he held up the string of trout and asked, “Ted, are you hungry?”

Charles Richardson was one of the youngest priests in one of New Mexico’s oldest Catholic dioceses. Father Chuck knew Angel from her brief academic sojourn at the Yale School of Divinity. Since her early departure from Yale, they’d kept in touch, and he remained a trusted member of Angel’s spiritual cadre—another coconut. Father Chuck’s prematurely graying hair and imposing physical stature gave him a military appearance that was inconsistent with his docile nature. He was tall but all legs, so hiking up the mountain had been a breeze. The southern route he’d taken up to Stewart Lake was at least half a mile longer than the northern end of the trail loop that Ted had trekked. Father Chuck had left an hour later than Ted but had still arrived at the lake around the same time. He was way too excited about his fishing to stop and introduce himself. There would be time for that later.

When Angel had challenged him to interrupt his little retreat at the Pecos monastery to assist in Ted’s transformation, he had been reluctant. Angel had pleaded, “But Chuck, you know as well as I do that the best way to help him understand
the vertical levels is to also develop horizontal awareness. What better person to speak to him about Christianity than a priest? That’s you!”

“Angel, there’s one problem,” Father Chuck had responded. “Personal journeys are sometimes, well, personal. Does he want my help?”

“He’s asked about you several times. You have such a solid understanding of Jesus. You’ll do much better than I ever could.” He didn’t answer, so she applied a bit more pressure. “Chuck, is it not your job to transform souls?”

Being heavily under the influence of a love of fly-fishing, he conceded, “Perhaps.”

“Then just get up here to Stewart Lake and teach Ted a little about fly-fishing and Jesus. How hard can that be?”

Reasonably skilled at shunning most earthly pleasures, Chuck considered fly-fishing a godly gift. He paused, then asked, “What time do you want me there?”

“Tomorrow, by early evening. And Chuck, if he has questions …”

“Don’t worry, Angel.”

Ted stared at the strangely clad, bearded man holding a string of fish. It was puzzling. His presence hinted at something, but Ted wasn’t sure what it might be. The fisherman’s calm countenance and accepting smile were disarming. Not knowing what else to do, Ted stuck out his hand and stammered, “Ted Day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Chuck hung the line of fish on a tree branch, removed his backpack, and said, “I’m Angel’s friend,
Father Chuck.” When Ted stared at him blankly, Father Chuck went on, “She did tell you about me, right?”

Ted breathed a sigh of relief. The strange mountain man was not a stranger after all. “Well, she did mention that we were going to meet at some point. I’m just surprised that it was up here.”

Father Chuck sat down on a boulder next to their campsite. “It’s a good place to learn how to fly-fish. She asked me to take a few hours tomorrow morning and give you a little introduction to the sport. Are you up to it?”

“I’d like to learn. I have a book, but I’ve never tried it.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here. To introduce you. Tonight we can talk about your journey with Angel … if you’d like.”

Ted grinned. However lacking in driving skills, Angel was turning out to be a superior spiritual consultant and vacation guide. “So Angel arranged for you to teach me about fly-fishing,” he mused.

“It’s not that hard. I can show you.” Father Chuck dug in his pack and started to pull out his cooking gear. “The great thing is … it’s not really teaching; it’s just showing.… All the while, we get to fish and talk about things that really matter in the world. Not a bad deal for either of us, hey?” Father Chuck removed from his pack and tossed Ted his old rod and reel. “Check it out. In the meantime I better get these cooking and my tent unpacked.”

Ted and Father Chuck ate their fill of trout. Argo waited patiently as Ted carefully separated a few tasty morsels from the bones and added them to his dog chow. With Argo fed,
Ted found his little flashlight, made his way to the shore of the tarn, tossed the fish bones out of Argo’s reach, and cleaned up their plastic dishes.

With the sun now set, the temperature had plummeted and the fire felt good. Father Chuck unfolded a small tarp, slipped on some blue jeans, and pulled a deck of cards from his pack. He asked Ted, “Do you like gin rummy?”

“Sure.” In fact, Ted thought he was a pretty good gin rummy player. Maybe, he thought to himself, on this subject he could be the teacher.

Father Chuck spread the tarp close to the fire where the dancing flames cast the strongest light. “Good. Let’s play cards and you can tell me about your work with Angel and your hike up the mountain. Did you see anything interesting?” the priest asked, settling down on the tarp and shuffling the cards. He motioned to Ted. “Sit down, Ted, and relax.”

“I saw two bears,” Ted said proudly as he got situated on the ground with Argo beside him.

“Really? That’s a bit unusual. How did your dog handle it?”

“The first one freaked him out a bit; fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice the second one. It was probably upwind. The hike wore us out.” Ted hesitated and then finished, “It was harder than I thought.”

“It’s one of my favorite hikes, but it isn’t easy.” Chuck picked up a king of diamonds from the discard pile. “Angel said you might want to ask me some questions. Did she mean you needed gin rummy tips?”

“No, I don’t think that’s what she meant, but if I need a
few pointers, I’ll let you know.” Ted drew his own card and, pleased with his pick, kept it and discarded another from his hand. “My questions are more along spiritual lines—she designated you as the official spokesperson for Christianity.”

The young priest saw no reason to debate the point, but he hardly felt qualified to be the spokesperson for the nearly one third of the planet’s population who considered themselves to be Christians. “Fire away and I’ll do my best.” Father Chuck flipped the king of spades onto the discard pile.

Knowing now that Chuck was not likely making a spades run, Ted quickly discarded his queen of spades. “I appreciate your help. To be honest, though, the whole church scene … It just, well … It hasn’t really worked for me. I’ve tried a few different denominations, but they keep saying—‘preaching’ I guess is the better word—things that seem implausible at best and downright misleading or even untruthful at worst. Angel told me maybe it’s not so much a case of ‘I don’t get it’ as a case of ‘I don’t need it.’ What do you think, Chuck? Is she right?”

Father Chuck pondered a moment longer than Ted thought necessary, leaving him unsure if the priest’s intent focus was on the question or his cards. Instead of drawing, he picked up Ted’s queen from the discard pile and replaced it with his own nine of clubs. “All right, Ted, I’ll do the best I can to answer your questions. Actually, I don’t totally agree. Let me rework a Buddhist parable for you, modernize it to suit our place in time.”

“If you can play gin rummy and preach at the same time, give it a go.”

“Here is how I see it.” Father Chuck peered over the top of his cards. “The Buddha had this much right: we’re all on the rocky and barren shore and want to get to the verdant, distant side of the lake.” He glanced down at his hand a moment before continuing. “Unlike ancient India, we now have many, many different boats to choose from. For a reasonable fee there are boat companies that promise to take us across the lake in their own vessels, to do the work so we don’t have to do it ourselves. We must only sit and put our trust in them. Their captains make optimistic promises about smooth sailing. Their marketing literature is slick. We stand on the shore today in a carnival atmosphere, with giant tents, neon signs, tweets, and Facebook pages. The boat promotion has been so successful that most travelers seem content to pay for the privilege of climbing in the boats and pretending to sail. If you’re able to get past the fanfare and look out over the lake, it’s pretty rare to see boats actually sailing.”

“If you’re saying that religion emphasizes the boat and neglects the journey, where did things go wrong?”

Father Chuck arranged the cards in his hand by suit before returning to Ted’s question. “Let’s start with Jesus. He is part truth, part legend, part myth, and part metaphor. The traditional focus of Christianity is on his divinity. He was the best boat captain that ever lived. For many of us, however, it’s his humanity that inspires us. You, me, all of us mortals—have the potential to achieve a fuller and better life. Jesus was trying to show us how to row our own boats across the lake. Most of us just aren’t there yet. In fact, we’re a long way off
and employing the wrong methods. If Jesus were standing beside us on the shore of the barren side of the lake, he wouldn’t be promoting the Jesus boat or questioning the seaworthiness of the Muhammad boat. His only concern would be getting us to other side. He called the other shore the Kingdom.”