Frolicking Ego

When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine. - Shunryu Suzuki in the Zen Calendar (June 7, 2002).

Day 173. A north wind blew through this evening, dropping the temperature from 95 to 82 in a half hour. It made me preposterously happy.

As did my bike ride this morning. I rode behind my partner on a 40-mile jaunt that included two magnificent newly paved roads and some well placed hills. When I first tucked in to his "slip stream" (thank you Phil and Paul for the reminder that British words trump U.S. vocabulary every time), I briefly forgot how to draft. Within a mile, it all came rushing back. My partner is the best draft in the galaxy. Whizzing along the flats of Franklin Road, I looked down and gasped to see I was cruising at over 20 mph with the energy expenditure that usually accompanies a turtlesque 15-16 mph.

I followed so close to his back tire, I doubt you could slip a piece of rice paper between us. Our synchronicity on the bikes is such that I am reminded of those breathtaking couples who figure skate and ice dance together. When I watch the performances of the best ice dancers, I always assume that, off the ice, they are either hot lovers or brother and sister (hopefully not both). How can we be so compatible on two (four?) wheels and so incompatible on every other substantive issue existing between two humans? Would twer that bicycling is life! Oh, wait. It is!

Somewhere in the first 20 miles, my ego busted out and frolicked. I have been riding by myself for about two months now, and it is very difficult to gauge cycling performance when you don't have a comparison group (especially if said group has historically been comprised of maniacal white males who log a gazillion miles a week). The team has always reassured me that riding alone makes you stronger (with the proverbial qualifier "if it doesn't kill you"). I am a sample size of One that utterly confirms this hypothesis. I rode extraordinarily well this morning, and it certainly wasn't because I had fresh legs (I am referencing the last three miles of yesterday's ride, in which roadkill appeared to be moving faster than me). As I blasted up a couple of climbs, I swear my ego gloated on the handlebars, shouting, "Look at me! Look at me!" For this born-again (but as yet unenlightened) Buddhist, it was an embarrassing state of affairs indeed.

Fortunately, cycling and zazen share a knack for whopping egos off handlebars. Enough hills, and/or enough minutes on a cushion hushing Monkeys will inevitably be humbling. Sort of like doing a fair amount of therapy on any given day. There will always be a client or two who effectively ratchets me down a few notches. I am beholden to them all, for I earnestly believe that my growth as a therapist is catalyzed by those moments when my well worn synaptic pathways are jarred off track. Those same entrenched neuro-connections are similarly zapped by the moments in meditation when all goes silent. Ego is simultaneously bewildered and obliterated. It is a beautiful thing.

I am no longer concerned about the occasional instance when my ego is sprung and makes a break for it. There are too many reliable sentinels in my lifestyle for it to go far.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc