Thirty More Good Ones

Quote will be added after my return from Tennesse.

Day 121. Today we rode our first ride of the Tennesse Tandem Rally. Actually, the official rally starts tomorrow. Today was the "Challenge Ride" - 69 miles through the hills outside of Murfeesboro, south and east of Nashville. The fact that only six bikes out of the 50 teams rolled out for the ride should have been a clue about what lay ahead. Ignorance, truly, is bliss. Two of the six teams turned around at mile 16 (after a stop at Cripple Creek Farm to pet ponies and stare at the kangaroo family). That left four teams to hammer out the next 53 miles together.

I will state the obvious: Hills in Tennesse are MUCH steeper, longer, and fraught with humidity than those baby bumps we call "hills" in Oklahoma. Gassho to Cannondale bike makers for constructing a machine that not only sustained the 370-pound load of my captain and I as we lumbered up those monster climbs; it also stayed upright without collapsing as we hurtled down the back sides at up to 50 mph. I'm pretty sure I have a new facial expression as of today. It's the face I make while riding blind behind my captain as he catapults us down unfamiliar, curvy descents on country roads resplendent with savage dogs and random spills of gravel. It probably resembles Brett Favre's face just after he's released a 50-yard rocket and just before a defensive end from the Steelers sacks him. Kind of a combination jubilation/grimace/this-could-really-suck face.

I may also have a new expression during zazen. It would resemble a serene and enlightened Buddha. I am digging this change to 30 minutes of sitting, and I have no idea why. First, hotel sofa cushions make the best zafus EVER. Firm but not hard, and just the right height. Our room borders the huge Embassy Suites hallmark atrium. This one is about 12 stories tall. With the acoustics of the open center, you can stand outside your room on the fourth floor and easily hear conversations held INSIDE the rooms on floor 12. In other words, it is NOISEY! The big group of skate boarders that never left their chairs during the complimentary (and extended!) Happy Hour in the lobby probably made a disproportionate contribution to the decibel level. Normally, I am a bad-tempered and inpatient cramudgeon when it comes to hotel noise (remember my attachment to ear plugs?) Last night, I was shockingly unaffected. I just Buddha-smiled through the hubbub.

My infant mastery of non-attachment has me all fired up. I am like a child with a new toy that doesn't even require batteries. I am sitting zazen as if my head was on fire. It is hard to describe, but delightful to experience. I think last night my mind and body may have fallen away for about a hair's breadth of a split second. My ego promptly joined me on the cushion, gloating over how great the zazen was going and how wise I was becoming. The Critical Primate didn't utter a word. Instead, I welcomed my ego to zazen, and experienced a comical image of an Ego Entity sidling up beside me on the couch cushion and there we sat - like two shipwreck survivors balancing on a plank. Not very many moments later, the Ego bailed and I continued to sit while my Buddha smile widened.

As a psychologist, I often speak from the Jungian perspective of incorporating ALL of the facets of Self into consciousness without judgment. This includes negative aspects, which, according to Jung, get relegated to the "shadow" - a place in the psyche where unfavorable personality characteristics (jealousy, rage, sexuality, fear, etc.) are kept from awareness. Good therapy facilitates a client's ability to integrate these "disowned" attritubes into the conscious mind, so that psychological energy is no longer wasted on keeping them at bay. This is how a person becomes "whole."

This is exactly the concept that is emerging while I sit. I am amazed that it took me three months of zazen to make this connection. While perched on my cushion, I can allow ALL the aspects of my experience equal space in my awareness without passing judgment - positive or negative - on any of it. I quietly observe, and it passes. In my marrow, I believe in this same orientation to therapy. The beginning of healing is accepting what is and what has been. Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), calls this radical acceptance (Dr. Linehan, by the way, practices Zen Buddhism.) I am a big fan of DBT, and now I know why. It is rooted in Non-Attachment. As Buddha taught, suffering originates in attachment. When we release our hold, suffering is alleviated.

I'm going to predict that the next few blogs are uncharacteristically short because I will be on my cushion. Playing with my new toy.

Gassho,
CycleBuddha Doc