Xena, the Red Mountain, and Me: A Hut, a Childhood, and Wild Buddhism

"To all the children who built temples without knowing it."

The Forest of Singing Bamboo

Bamboo grew everywhere. It rustled like pages turning slowly, as if the forest were reading a sacred book aloud. I listened. I was eight years old, with scraped knees and a red-haired dog named Xena. She was my queen, my protector, my first meditation teacher—though back then, I didn’t know that’s what she was.

The forest was our kingdom. Not the kind from fairy tales, with castles and fairies, but a real forest: the kind that smells of wet earth, cracks underfoot, and hides treasures beneath its leaves. Our treasure was a small red mountain—a scar left by humans—and a cherry tree with tart fruit, under which we built our hut. Our temple.

The Red Mountain: My First Pilgrimage

Climbing that slope was a ritual. The red earth, like crushed brick, stuck to my soles and fingers. Every step was a trial. "Be careful, it’s slippery!" my mother would say, but I didn’t care. Xena climbed without hesitation, her fur blending with the rust-colored rocks. She knew what I didn’t yet: patience is a prayer.

I thought I was scaling Everest. In reality, it was just a mound of earth and stone, a remnant of an old mine. But to me, it was Mount Meru, the axis of the world. The Buddha walked for years before sitting under the Bodhi tree. I took ten minutes to reach the top, breathless, my cheeks streaked with dried tears. My friends had abandoned me—"We’re going to play somewhere else!"—but Xena stayed. "Suffering exists, but so does liberation," the Buddha might have whispered, watching me finally sit at the summit, heart pounding.

Up there, the wind blew harder. From that height, I could see everything: the factory with its gray smokestack on one side, golden fields on the other. Xena always chose the beautiful side. Not out of ignorance, but wisdom. "Peace comes when we stop dividing the world," she taught me without a word.

The Hut: A Temple of Wood and Tears

I built it alone. Or almost alone. Xena kept watch, growled at squirrels trying to steal my nails, and lay in the shade while I worked. The planks were crooked. The roof leaked. My fingers bled. But every hammer strike was a mantra: "I persevere. I respect."

I thought I was building a fort. Really, I was practicing samadhi—absolute concentration. The Buddha said, "The path is the destination." I nailed planks together, thinking of the friends who had left, and slowly, the anger turned into something else. Into plofond, that joy with no reason, the kind that hits you when you’re finally present.

"You’re building walls, but the hut is already open to the wind," the Buddha might have said. And it was true: the real treasure was being there, with the smell of resin, the sharp taste of stolen cherries, and Xena snoring in the corner.

The Cherry Tree: A Lesson in Impermanence

The fruit was small, sour, but we ate it like communion wafers. "Look, Xena, it’s our feast!" She wagged her tail, indifferent to the bitterness. Sometimes I cried, thinking of those who had left me. But the cherries fell too. They rotted, fed the earth, and the next summer, the tree bore new ones.

"Everything is impermanent. Hold on to the taste, not the cherry," the Buddha would have smiled. Xena never mourned the lost fruit. She sniffed it, then moved on. A lesson in letting go, on four paws.

Xena’s Forced (and Kind) Meditation

When I collapsed in tears against the tree trunk, she rested her head on my lap. Not to comfort me, but to remind me: "Breathe. Nature is always here." The scent of damp earth, bamboo, rotting cherries—it was my incense. My first meditation.

"Meditation is returning again and again to the present moment," they say. Xena was a master. She never spoke of mindfulness, but she showed me: listen to the wind, smell the grass, watch the ants. "The past is a dream, the future an illusion. Look: here, now, the bamboo is dancing."

What the Buddha Would Have Said, Sitting Beside Me

• "You think you’re alone? Look: the bamboo surrounds you, the mountain holds you, Xena watches over you. Compassion needs no words."
• "Your friends left? Nature will never abandon you. Learn from her."
• "You’re building a temple, but you are the sanctuary."

Epilogue: The Inner Hut

Today, I still meditate. But I know I’m just trying to return to that hut—the one where Xena taught me that spirituality is first a love story. With the world. With yourself. And with a red-haired dog.

Years later, Cassie sleeps in my room, the light on. Sometimes I close my eyes and see the red mountain, the bamboo, the cherry tree. I see Xena, young and lively, watching me build my makeshift temple.

"Everything is impermanent," the Buddha said. But some things remain: the smell of the forest after rain, the weight of a dog’s head on your lap, and the certainty that wisdom, sometimes, hides in a poorly built hut.

"And you—what was your childhood temple?"