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Click images throughout the page to enlarge Musai's photographs from Off the Path, On the Way
© Prajna Zendo 2004-2010
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Click images throughout the page to enlarge Musai's photographs from Off the Path, On the Way
I have been wandering the mountains, canyons and badlands of Northern New Mexico since I came here in 1979. When I first arrived, before finding work or a place to live, I headed off into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for a two week backpack trip. Coming back from that journey, I felt as though I had found home. Having lived in many parts of this country, the word “home” always evoked the place where I was raised--until coming to New Mexico and those two weeks in the mountains. My love for and feeling of connection to this place has only deepened over the years.
When I first moved here, I took up downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, and white water rafting, as well as hiking and backpacking. Over the years these other pursuits have fallen away, so that only walking remains, and walking fulfills me. I don’t backpack anymore--too hard on my aging body--but I still take day hikes of 10-15 miles, and each summer I go off into the mountains for a solo retreat. For a week or more I camp on the edge of some wilderness, usually in Southern Colorado, and alternate days of zazen with days of hiking.
Almost always my hikes include some off trail travel, and often the entire hike is off trail. Some of the places I have found to hike simply have no trails. Trails go to places and through places, but if you want to become intimate with a place you must go off the trail. Off the trail I discover the qualities, the textures, and the challenges of the place. Gary Snyder wrote this poem about hiking off trail:
Off The Trail
by Gary Snyder for Carole
We are free to find our own way
Over rocks—through the trees-
Where there are no trails. The ridge and the forest
Present themselves to our eyes and feet
Which decide for themselves
In their old learned wisdom of doing
Where the wild will take us. We have
Been here before. It’s more intimate somehow
Than walking the paths that lay out some route
That you stick to,
All paths are possible, many will work,
Being blocked is its own kind of pleasure,
Getting through is a joy, the side-trips
And detours show down logs and flowers,
The deer paths straight up, the squirrel track
Across, the outcroppings lead us on over.
Resting on tree trunks,
Stepping out on the bedrock, angling and eyeing
Both making choices-now parting our ways-
And later rejoin; I’m right, you’re right,
We come out together. Mattake, “Pine Mushroom,”
Heaves at the base of a stump. The dense matted floor
Of Red Fir needles and twigs. This is wild!
We laugh, wild for sure,
Because no place is more than another,
All places are total, And our ankles, knees, shoulders and Haunches know right where they are.
Recall how the Dao De Jing puts it:
the trail’s not the way. No path will get you there,
we’re off the trail, You and I, and we chose it!
Our trips out of doors Through the years have
been practice For this ramble together,
Deep in the mountains Side by side,
A few years ago I began leading relatively short hikes (4-6 miles) with small groups of Zen students. We would hike off trail in silence for a couple of hours, then I would leave each person alone in some spot of their choice, and hike another hour by myself. After I collected everyone again, we would hold council, in order to share our experiences, have lunch, and return to our vehicles.
I called these hikes Off The Path, On The Way--the path being whatever trails had been established to make hiking easier and safer, and the Way being The Supreme Way. I saw these hikes as metaphor for the practice of Zen, where each of us must leave what we know and forget who we are in order to realize our True Nature.
I haven’t led these hikes for awhile and now the impulse behind them has taken a new form. I wrote this letter on this website to sangha members and friends of Prajna Zendo in November, inviting people to join me.
I have led one of these hikes since then, with four companions. It was a glorious trip through broken country--up canyons, across mesas, and down a 1200’ escarpment. I plan more and the invitation to join me is open to all who are drawn to the “practice of the wild,” as Gary Snyder puts it. . I have included photographs on this page from the first hike.
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December 9, 2009
Dear hikers,
Here are a few photos from the most recent Off The Path, On The Way hike. We began hiking a little after 8 AM, the sun having just risen on a clear day at 15 degrees Fahrenheit. The whole hike was off trail--sometimes challenging, always beautiful, and the four of us making our way through this magnificent landscape. Two days before the Winter Solstice, I felt as though we were beckoning back the light. For me there were three highlights...
First, scrambling up across redrock boulders, in the early morning light, through patches of snow, at the foot of a soaring red and yellow cliff already lit by the sun...
Second, was a hike up to the highest point of the trip, with incredible views in all directions. I felt as though I was ascending to the Throne of Enlightenment.
Here we all are, Rochelle, Roger, me and Virginia stopped for lunch. By this time the temperature was probably up to 45 degrees and the sun warmed our bones as we ate and rested.
The 3rd amazing time came as we scrambled down through a redrock canyon on the way back to our vehicle, the sun setting in front of us. We reached the car just as the sun set, tired and happy.
I have mentioned three special times on this trip, but, in fact, the whole time deserves to be honored. Hiking with three adventurous companions, often over terrain that requires, as Dogen Zenji puts it, "fully engaging body and mind," makes for a most wonderful day.
