Big Gaping Holes

There is not enough nothing in it. - John Cage in the Zen Calendar (October 30, 2006).

Day 95. I didn't ride my bike today. My legs are twitching, but not near as much as my neurons.

It feels like I have a lot to write, but I can't collect a cohesive thought. I guess thought cohesion is yet another thing impacted by a spongy thyroid. That little cluster of molecules appears to influence every bodily function there is. And I thought my legs were important . . .

My team went down to the Wichita Mountains today to ride up Mt. Scott. That's right: Ride UP Mt. Scott. It's a common milestone among Oklahoma cyclists. Of course, in this age when "enough" is synonymous with "way too much," the thing to do is ride it several times in one day. I think the EZ Riders were going to ride up once, fly back down, cruise through the refuge for about 50 miles, then ride up one more time for a little cool-down. I guess I could have gone along for the ride (well, not the ride exactly - rather the drive) but I didn't trust myself to stay off the bike. It would be embarrassing for the "doc" of the team to stroke out while riding my bike against a "real" doctor's orders. I would never live that down.

So I stayed home and wandered aimlessly around the house and yard. I didn't take out the rug kit - that probably would have driven me off the cliffs of despair. Instead, I took the dogs to the lake, but my legs hurt so much that I walked too slowly and they kept wandering off and disappearing. Not one of our better Bye-Byes. Everything felt bleak, like peering up at the world through muddy water. I couldn't summon the energy for mood improvement, so I just plodded along thinking sporadically about Big Mind. And wishing someone would come carry me back to the car.

I experienced something interesting in zazen last night. Perhaps when I blogged the words "big gaping hole" yesterday a seed was planted in my subconscious. As I meditated with my eyes three-quarters shut, my thinking mind slid right up to the edge of a gaping black hole and spilled over into nothingness. Something outside of me watched while it happened. That something then engaged in a dialogue about whether or not I would stay in the hole, which promptly plucked me back into Monkey mind. I kept breathing. I fell into the hole again. My breath just breathed itself in and out and the outside something was shushed so that I wasn't immediately wrested back into my brain. As I reflect upon it now, words fail me; memory fragments feel like I just bobbed around in a blue/black space for a while, gently registering that I need only to stay calm and watch my breath. My baffling imperative to revert to cerebral chatter manifested before long. I am so lousy at nothingness.

The irony of a physical condition requiring excessive amounts of quiet and rest coinciding with learning to meditate is not lost on me. It seems obvious and cliched to acknowledge that meditating would be an ideal way to healthily cope with forced time off the bike. I'm feeling much too rebellious at the moment. I want to complain and whine and be pissed off. I want zazen to compliment rigorous physical activity, not artificially fill the abyss of time left by not riding. We'll see what happens as the week unfolds. For now, I'm just maneuvering big gaping holes.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc