To give Ray a taste of Mother Nature’s inspiring beauty, Japhy takes him out east to climb Mount Matterhorn, near the Nevada border. Ray and Japhy try to have it both ways: they throw wild parties with friends like Alvah, Warren Coughlin, and Japhy’s girlfriend Princess, who calls herself a Bodhisattva and has sex with everyone. Japhy shows Ray “Cold Mountain,” a poem he’s translating by the reclusive Chinese ascetic Han Shan, who believed that a life of solitary contemplation in nature is vastly superior to an ordinary, social life in the city. Japhy lives in a similar shack nearby and spends his days hiking alone in the mountains, meditating, and reading Chinese and Japanese poetry. At a poetry reading, Ray listens in wonder as Japhy speaks brilliantly about American Indian mythology, the American middle class, and Buddhist monks.Īcross the Bay in Berkeley, Ray moves in with his friend Alvah Goldbrook in a modest one-room shack. He fully embraces this lifestyle when he meets Japhy, an outdoorsman, poet, tea aficionado, and Zen Buddhist who grew up in the Oregon woods and now lives near San Francisco. He camps out on the beach and explains his philosophy, which is based in Buddhism: Ray is a modern-day bhikku (Buddhist monk), traveling around North America like a wandering pilgrim on the path of dharma (the order of the universe). Ray Smith travels up the California coast toward San Francisco by hopping a freight train.
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