Tassajara Zen Center
Or give me that old time faux-Buddhism!
To pick up the tale of my cross-country trip in 1974 which is recounted in my post titled Picking up Hitchhikers — Picaresque Adventures in the US, I got to Seattle and spent some time with childhood friends. I then hitchhiked to Portland to see my cousin Melodie and my Aunt and Uncle. While somewhere in Washington State and standing along the road trying to get a lift, I noticed that someone had written on a road sign, ‘Carla and Laurie will ball any foxy looking dudes’. This appeared to be written by a woman and I pondered who Carla and Laurie were and whether I fell into the category of ‘A foxy looking dude’ or not. Well, one has to while away one’s time as best as one’s imagination will allow! From Portland I took the Greyhound bus to Monterrey CA to see what was left of Cannery Row (Steinbeck y’all).
My goal at this point was the Tassajara Zen Center, which is located in the coast range above Monterrey. At that time there had been a lot of interest among impressionable American youths such as myself in Oriental philosophy which had been popularized in the youth counter-culture — initially by the Beats, then by the Hippies, and, I suppose, most of all by The Beatles during their most intellectually addled period hanging out with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Mia Farrow in India. I read every major book of eastern religions I could lay my hands on: Alan Watts, Manual of Zen Buddhism, Tao Te Ching, Confucius, Upanishads, Dhammapada, Ramayana, you name it.
A friend of mine from Junior High named Alfred had spent his High-School years in Japan, and had come back with his head stuffed full of ideas about Zen Buddhism and finding enlightenment etc. So, influenced by him specifically and the counterculture generally, I decided to go and spend a little time at the Tassajara Zen Center.
Firstly, let me say that the place is idyllic. It’s located not too far from Carmel up in the hills. The road to the center at the time was dirt and getting there was a bit slow. In addition to the main temple (Zendo), there were accommodations for the monks and acolytes. It had cabins that members of the public could rent out, and a first-class bakery. There are natural hot springs, a natural steam bath built over the vents in the ground where steam from the hot springs comes out and an icy-cold mountain stream next to it. I’d recommend a couple of days in one of the cabins, coupled with bathing in the hot springs any time.
But young Americans posing as pseudo-Japanese monks was merely laughable. There was of course no Oriental face in sight, just a bunch of confused young Americans whose reason for being there ranged from being misfits to having been dumped by a girlfriend. We did a lot of pointless chanting in the temple, while kneeling and facing the wall while a fellow walked around striking people on the shoulder with a stick if he thought they were not focusing or were slumping. The chant was entirely prosaic and as best as I can remember consisted of only the names of the patriarchs or Boddhisatvas in a line back to the Buddha.
Chanting seems to be a key feature of the Americanization of Buddhism. If you really want to get into it try Nicherin Shoshu with their repetitive chant, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo which, as best that Alfred could work out, means either: ‘Hail the Lotus Sutra,’ or ‘Southern Buddhism’ — most likely the former but I’m more amused by the notion of a bunch of gullible Americans sitting around and chanting “southern Buddhism’ over and over again. In this version of thoroughly Americanized Buddhism, you can chant for a new job, a promotion or a raise. We went to a meeting where we witnessed several people testify, revival style, that it really worked. We might as well have been in a tent with sawdust on the ground listening to a little preachifyin’!
I was written up in the book one morning as ‘unconscious’, as I overslept for temple. All in all, it was a humorous, if not somewhat silly exercise in faux spiritualism. I then came down from the mountain to the sordid Babylon of LA. Wish I had stopped off at Esalen to offer up my 19-year-old body to the new-age practitioners there.
As a more cynical and worldly-wise adult I tried to sum up this youthful flirtation with Oriental mysticism in the following poem:
Tassajara
Where was that place I sat,
Stick struck on back,
Cushioned only by an imitation?
Tat Tvam Anandi.
That thou art.
Words with no meaning in a suburban park
Stoned and staring at a haze of thought,
Nonthought,
Undifferentiated.
Crude, disjointed screed, mere jumbling.
I sing, sing of what I assume,
And of myself
And cannot distinguish through the haze of smoke,
Pale horse, no rider from the eyes of God.
Tat Tvam Anandi.
That thou art.
Thou wert,
One from another.
In a juvenile room draped in blue
I slept, missed but uncounted,
While unpretend being pretended imagination.
But not much.
