Living in a Cave
revisited in 2006
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revisited in 1992
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In 1975 I returned to Hawaii after some time spent traveling on the continent. I found my resources were pretty well depleted and had an uncertainty as to just how I was going to re fit myself back into the old network. Initially I was staying with friends and trying to re establish old ties. I ran into a friend who was a follower of a guru in India. He had been staying in a cave in the mountains in the back of Honolulu. He had shown this place to me in the past. We often sat and spoke on various topics of truth and belief. He wore the monk garb of India and taught a class on Indian music at the University of Hawaii. When he made the decision to go to India to be with his chosen guru, I took the opportunity to take up residence in the cave.
At this time I had an informal association with a zendo then existent in Manoa Valley. I sometimes slept in their garage. It was a personal association and completely off the record but enough of a commitment to be the foundation of a personal practice. With images of meditating devotees I headed for the hills to experience solitude and the rantings of an unquiet mind. My few remaining things were carefully stored in various available garages and with a bag of rice and a broken cast pot I made my way into the mountains.
It goes without saying that if one were going to do such a thing, you could hardly beat Hawaii as an environment for a hermitage experiment. The area was in the midst of considerable wilderness and lent itself well to the scavenging of food. Many imported exotics are now wild in the islands so pear (avocado), macadamia nuts, mango, banana, lilikoi (passion fruit), and much more were easily found. It was a lesson to learn just how much a bunch of bananas can weigh. I would have to make multiple trips to the source to move the load. Civilization was never far away. Hikers would often pass within earshot of the cave and the risk of being discovered was ever present. I was never sure what the consequences might be if discovered so stealth became important, necessary or not.
Being in the forest was a darker and colder experience than one might think. There is a cold rawness to the mountains in Hawaii. I was often of a mind to climb into the canopy just to get some sun and warm up. Palms were woven to make a sleeping pad and at some point I wove a wall across the front of the cave to keep out the wind driven rains.
Meditation in the Zen form became regular for me. Morning and evening and whenever else I deemed it opportune I wouldsit zazen. I remember how loud the mind would get. A song stuck in your head would play forever with no knob for turning it off. I remember a whole day of Joplin singing, “When bobby sang the blues.” Various areas of the cave became physical locations for visualizations. The mind was often allowed to follow unexpected pathways to see what it might discover. I recall that there was a Bagdavagita left in the cave and a Bible. I had brought Suzuki’s text with me as well but in fact I don’t think I ever resorted to reading any of them. I just appreciated their company.
So there I was. Small evening fires to cook rice, and roast nuts, a head full of contemplation, and a routine of heading out to different locations each day in quest of a variety of foods, dodging and hiding from any sort of encounter with others. I can not begin to know how many days I would pass in this way, seeing no one. What stands out are the exceptions, the visits from others who either knew of the cave on their own or came seeking me and might call from the trail, knowing the area but not the place. I was not so reclusive not to appreciate and welcome someone to talk with. Visitors were few and far between but always welcome. Of those who came on their own I remember Kabir who guided the Sufis in their dancing. It was an honor to receive him and an affirmation of my commitment. There was also an art professor at the UH who blundered upon me, not knowing I was there but familiar with me from the UH campus. We spoke of deeper things and appreciations of the world. Some others unknown to me found me out. They were all pleasant enough and never caused any trouble. Oh, and there was also an unusual street woman who called herself Winebago. She wore vines in her hair and carried most of her belongings about with her. She came a couple of times and seemed very “put out” that I was there. She had known the previous resident.
Tea
The final access to the cave was pretty well hidden. to keep from wearing a path I had placed some stones a row which I could step on to approach the cave entrance. To get to these hidden stones you first had to first follow an occasionally used access trail to a small waterfall. This access required that you leave a main trail, descend a steep embankment, cross over the stream on a log, pass though head-high ginger, and climb a small ledge to the falls. It was quite indirect and meant that you wove back and forth below the unseen cave as you approached. On one occasion I was visited by a woman friend who had recently returned from the study of Tea in Japan. She waited on the main valley path across the ravine. I guided her across the stream to the falls where we paused and refreshed. Once the breath and hearts were quieted down, we went to the cave where I had prepared balls of rice and some fruit and nuts and, of course, hot water for tea. She later confided that she had been very intrigued over how the whole visit had followed the course of a tea ceremony about which I had no knowledge at the time. A sort of intuition to be polite and thoughtful had guided the visit and perhaps revealed the origins of a ritual.
Dogs
There was one early morning when I became aware of a general disturbance in the valley below, a loud and unusual rustling. I first suspected a large number of silently moving people but soon came to realize that there was a pack of dogs spread out and combing the valley floor for food. The pack mentality of wild dogs is legendary and I kept silent hoping they would just continue up the valley and leave me be. This appeared to be the case until a lone dog appeared above the cave and found its way down the ledge. It seemed full of fear but not so afraid as to stay away from my human presence. Cautious and wary though it was, it did receive and consume a bowl of rice I put out for it and then proceeded to fall asleep. I went off on my routine of gathering, choosing a direction other than the dogs had taken. I had much on my mind. I was full of inner questions about caring for the animal with my limited resources and wondering about the responsibility that comes from lending a hand. Also I thoght about the morality of leaving of things to their own fate without intervening. When I got back to the cave the dog had overturned the main rice pot. All the rice had been consumed and other stocksof food stuffs were torn apart and eaten. The dog was gone. When it returned a few days later I pulled some anger out of my pocket and told him to seek his karma elsewhere.
Tiki
I got to thinking about artifacts. I had found a nice round piece of lava stone and spent some time grinding a couple of shallow holes into it to create a sort of face. It was interesting to me how important this new presence became. Slowly a stack of stones became a body and I dressed it in a cape of ti leaves and small vines and twigs. In the absence of social activity, I empowered this being with personality and appropriate responses to imagined dialogue. How easy it was to set up this empowerment, the way children do with dolls. It was like the beginnings of idolatry, the empowering of inanimate objects. Well it made for good company and I went so far as to ensconce the character in a niche beside the nearby waterfall. It had been there for a week or more with me caring for it, keeping the niche clean and leaving it tidbits of food. I can’t really call it a ritual but it did become a pattern, mostly because it was fun but also because it was fulfilling some inner need to relate to something. So all was well until one afternoon when I heard what I must describe as a blood curdling scream. I really was imagining some horrible crime was occurring and I rushed to an overlook of the waterfall, only to see two figures hastening off through the ginger patch speaking lowly to each other. “Come on, we have to get out of here, I’ve heard for these things before” “We never should have come here.” “Come on, hurry” “This place is kapu, we shouldn’t be here”
With a smile, I brought the tiki back to the cave.
Notwone
I did no drawing or writing in all the time I spent up there. I did beat out rhythms with sticks and stones in the night. I found sticks of certain tones and notes and collected them. I spoke to things both animate and inanimate. Held monologues with the rats and mongooses that raided my bananas. The mouse who ate macadamia nut crumbs off my chest in the morning sun I called friend but I doubt he returned the concept. I did at some point scratch the word “NOTWONE” with charcoal on the cave wall. It had something to do with thinking about duality. Not two, one. I think I was seeking a personal mantra and I found great delight in this made up word. This became my poem from the cave.
Returning
revisited in 1992
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After several months time, I began to wander out of the valley in the middle of the night. I would walk old familiar streets but see very little in the way of people. Usually, by daylight, I would head back into the valley. I was once asked directions and on another time had someone who knew me stop to ask if I was OK. I could not find my voice. Nor did I have the will to answer questions. The ability to speak or even to compose a response seemed exhausting. These folks departed with great concern. I recall another time, seeing someone with car troubles, I walked up to help push the car out of the intersection and then walked away without speaking a word. Looking back now, I can see how this must have appeared but I have the memory and the knowledge that everything was fine. I began staying out of the valley for longer periods of time. One of my first visits to a campus cafeteria was for an all you can eat buffet and, although I had never felt hungry, I gorged by self into discomfort. This truely surprised me.
I began to make contacts again and I found a gig playing banjo in a small restaurant for a meal and tips. Toward Christmas the owner offered to let me stay in the restaurant, closed for the season, and provide materials for me to paint a large mural on the wall. This memory reminds me that I was still without a formal place to live. I accepted and proceeded to work on three sheets of plywood to be hung in the restaurant. Now there was a monk walking around the UH in his robe and he had attracted my attention. People had mentioned to me that he was from Vietnam but I had neither met nor spoken to him. Out of curiousity I would sometimes follow him around to see what he was about. On one of these silent pursuits he went into a campus building and when I, following not too far behind, turned the corner…. no one was there. He had vanished. I went down the hall thinking he must have gone into a classroom and then at the end of the hall when I turned back, he was standing in plain sight with a grin on his face. So the gig was up. As we approached each other, he reached into his sleeve before any words were spoken and pulled out a small fan covered with Japanese characters. This he handed to me and then said something to the effect of. “Do you know tea ceremony?” “This is appropriate gift for tea ceremony.” “Hurry!” “Go now, there is tea ceremony in the garden” “Go! Go!” Then he bowed and walked away.
So off I go to the garden where there is an wonderful imported tea house from Japan and sure enough, there is a tea ceremony in progress being conducted by a well known master from Japan. A second group of students had gathered, obviously awaiting their turn and their instructor, being familiar with me and hearing of my recent encounter, invited me to join them. This was a wonderful and unexpected adventure. When the ceremony was over I went to the Master to offer my fan as a gift. He looked at it a bit puzzled and then told me how he had just given this to a monk in a saffron robe.
One day while I was working on the restaurant mural, the monk, whose name I had since learned was Tu, walked in. He raised his hands in a gesture indicating that I should not take notice of him and sat in a corner to watch my work. I don’t recall how long he was there this first time but he returned and eventually we got into conversations. This is when I learned his name. When we got around to speakng about the cave he was quite interested and asked to see it. He also told of how he had nearly died from mosquitos while in a cave in his native land. I offered to take him up to the cave and we did spend a day up there sharing stories.
So one day a bit later he arrives at the restaurant with a large object wrapped in a cloth and announces that it is for the cave. Inside the cloth is a large gold painted plaster Buddha. He also tells me he is leaving Hawaii. We set the Buddha up to watch the mural’s progress and I told Tu that I would take it to the cave when the painting was completed. Tu spent the rest of the day watching and then departed. I never saw him again. When the painting was finished, I packed the Buddha on my back and carried it to the cave where I left it on a platform in the back of the cave.
In 1992, I had a chance to return to Hawaii and revisit the cave. I found the Buddha and the books just as I had left them. Then in 1999 on another return visit to Hawaii, the Buddha and all signs of my stay there were gone though I did find the cast pot below in the woods. Strangely, I had word from a friend that they had found the broken head of a gold Buddha while hiking in that very valley. They knew about my having stayed in a cave but knew nothing with regards to where I had done this or where the cave was.
