Chapter 5 - The Indescribable Lake

There is a word I often contemplate: "Indescribable".

Something is indescribable when, describing it, you miss it. This is what Lao-Tze meant by "If the Tao can be described, then it is not the Eternal Tao". And I know that the lake is also indescribable.

In other people's eyes, including people living near the lake, Lake Sammamish is an ordinary lake. There are two large lakes in the state of Washington: Lake Washington is closer to Seattle while Lake Sammamish is closer to Redmond.

Lake Washington is a lake that sparkles. With two big bridges spanning it, it preens itself magnificently, like a beautiful lady standing in the sunlight, hiding nothing, waving in the breeze, revealing the best of her years splendidly.

Lake Sammamish is different. It is not well known. One has to fly over the mountains to see it. It is like a quiet hermit, a village girl with little make-up on. Not a lake that sparkles, it occupies a spot among the icy cold peaks, keeping a posture of meditation, breathless, motionless, under the circling of hawks, in the midst of solemn woods. Many people are not even acquainted with its name.

Residents around Lake Sammamish treat it matter-of-factly, like an ordinary lake, even though one can watch the sun rise from mountains on its east side, and, during autumn and winter, witness the parade of transparent fog on its face which transforms it into a fairy land. In summer, the lake residents sail, row and fish. Children swim in the lake and even get on water skis. But, in the eyes of the locals, it is just an ordinary lake, too ordinary in fact, amid the trees and mountains.

Of all the people living around here, only I know that this Lake Sammamish transforms itself into a million forms, though under the illumination of the sun and the moon it appears to remain the same. In reality, it is alive. It is constantly reciting the sound of mantra in murmurs. It has a transcendent point of view. It has the mudra of a hermit.

Lake Sammamish has gone through the trails of history, through the dissolution of desires; it is constantly meditating in deep thoughts, from Self to Selfless. It has persevered through troubles and pains and is progressively getting closer to its goal. Countless days have slipped by, countless days have become blank, myriad forms have changed into one single form and from one single form, it has metamorphosed into Selflessness.

How did Holy-Red-Crown-Vajra-Master accomplish so much? By learning much from Lake Sammamish. The huge storms and waves turn into nothingness. There is no such thing as humiliation, and because there is no humiliation, one naturally does not have to tolerate it. I am not tolerating suffering, but turning suffering into nothingness. This might seem like a kind of "Self-Denial" to some philosophers.

To be honest, I learned to lower my desires by becoming a vegetarian and following certain precepts. I learned to forget myself during meditation. Silently reciting the heart mantra, I became one with the lake. I entered into the consciousness of the lake. In my heart, a lake appeared. I attained a kind of extremely blissful eternity. This is not a temporary escape from worries, nor a lessening of worries. While entering and leaving the consciousness of the lake, I received a complete cleansing. While becoming a hermit, I experienced a true purification.

Some have said that a Tantric cultivator only attains temporary liberation while he is practicing cultivation. When he comes out of meditation, he is no different from the ordinary man. It is like a drunkard whose troubles and worries disappear when he is drunk, but when he wakes up, all the worries and troubles are still there.

But, such is not my case. Merging with the lake produces a realm of Selflessness. This kind of supreme wisdom is eternal. There is no Self. I become the lake, Lake Sammamish, completely.

Before I settled down by the lakeside, I trekked all over the United States. I visited the volcanic Honolulu, Los Angeles on the Pacific coast, the gold-digging San Francisco, San Diego, famous for its harbors, the lustful Las Vegas, the tropical Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., New York, and many other places. I was looking for my future. I was training myself on the road. But I picked the rainy countryside of Lake Sammamish.

I did not choose Washington D.C., for it has too many houses of prostitution.

I did not choose New York, for it has too many muggers.

I did not choose the gambling city, for Las Vegas is too much of a desert.

I wanted to look at trees, and lakes, and rivers, and oceans. I wanted to live in a fresh environment because I had seen all kinds of corruption, and I had gone through those temptations. They are but a temporary anesthesia, bringing short term wisdom that is worldly-minded; they are like getting drunk, but hurting more the morning after.

The residents living around the lake do not seem to understand Lake Sammamish. One person does. Living by the lakeside as a hermit, he requires no pier, no boat, no fishing gear. The mutual feeling between the sage and the lake is transcendent and indescribable.

The lake is beyond the description of words.

What I have written here does not even capture a ten-thousandth of what it is.

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