Curved Spines and Steep Embankments

"I am thankful for indoor plumbing." - My mother, during this year's ritual roundtable of "What are you thankful for?"

Day 296. My mother was in no way being sarcastic when she made the above comment at the start of our holiday dinner. My parents' house required extensive plumbing work over the summer, and there were many days when the status of their indoor plumbing was questionable. My mom, who occasionally dabbles in Reality, thus deemed working toilets at the top of her gratitude list this year.

Happy Thanksgiving. Admittedly, I am a fan of any holiday involving multiple tubs of Cool Whip; however, I also have deep ambivalence toward a tradition honoring the rampant heist and plundering of indigenous people's land. I suspect there are aspects of the holiday's origin that were not included amongst the pilgrims, squash, pumpkin and turkeys emphasized in my elementary education. I must research this further.

We began the day with an early morning mountain bike ride. It was freezing. I rode extremely fast because my hands were too cold to shift or brake. In spite of the cold, I experienced my first Zen ride of the season. Finally. I acknowlege and accept that everything I do is expressing my Buddha nature, however, I must confess to a wee bit of attachment to a preference for the part of Buddha that stays upright on the bike. It is much easier on my ribs. I call those rare occasions when I silence the Ride Critique Monkeys and surrender to the flow of the trail "Zen Rides." Today, I was damn near Poetry in Motion. At the very least, I was Rock Solid Haiku.

This past week, I encountered another Miracle on the Cushion. It involved my spine. At a glance, my scoliosis is not so pronounced as to make an outsider exclaim, "Wow! What a crooked spine!" (though my Pilates teacher announces that exact sentiment about once a month). As the years go by, however, the structural implications of my curvy vertebrae are beginning to manifest. On the Womble, trembling and achy after my crashes, I noticed that I wasn't carving my turns well at all. I bumbled through the trail twists like an 18-wheeler on a British side street. My subsequent over-thinking, over-anticipating, over-correcting, and under-confidence further detracted from flowing. The Monkeys were thrilled. So much grist for the chattering mill.

While sitting zazen and earnestly attending to the here-and-now, my awareness drifted to my spine. Gently, I guided it from the base of my skull to the lower lumbar vertebrae that were cracked and twisted several years ago. I breathed in loving kindness from my tailbone to my lizard brain. In one of those beautiful, rare, fall-away moments, I experienced my spine through a Zen perspective. No judgment, no regret, no frustration or disappointment, no investment in having a more linear column. I simply sat, breathed, and accepted my back. Gone were the "what if's" of my athletic endeavors and accomplishments. Gone was the wonderment about my genetic inheritance (I got dad's chest rather than mom's voluptuous bosom; mom's spine rather than dad's ramrod straight, titanium strong skeletal system). Gone, too, were the tense, overcompensating muscles straining under the militaristic command of my brain to "straighten up." I felt an intense, laser-sharp connection with my body. Not a Preferred Version of My Body. The Reality of My Body. Like past flashes of meditative insight, the sensation was encapsulated within radiant, pure love. The white light of healing.

The trail I rode today has some killer banking turns. Some amazingly skilled trail builders have constructed steep embankments on the sharp curves. If you get your body, bike, and the laws of physics synchronized just right, it is possible to enter and exit the turn and not lose a bit of speed. Not to mention you look really cool to the person riding behind you (but I'm not attached to that!) I had been carving my bike through those turns as if I were a straight-backed cyclist. Not the case. Before the Miracle on the Cushion, my brain insisted that I was balanced and symmetrical on the bike, and issued no technical adjustments for the disequilibrium caused by my curvature. Consistent with the laws of physics (which, apparently, are pretty much in sync with Reality), I carved excessively for turns in one direction, and insufficiently for turns in the other. Needless to say, those magnificent embankments were lost on me. I slid off them, down them, over them, or missed them altogether, which necessitated using the brakes, interrupting my momentum, and (worst of all!) not looking very cool.

My Spinal Enlightenment catalyzed spectacular alterations in my ability to carve. Essentially, I experienced a shift in awareness of my body mechanics. They aligned according to Reality: Crooked spine, lopsided center of gravity, limber and wide range of motion on one side, tight and restricted range of motion on the other. Voila! Once my brain understood it, my heart accepted it, and my Big Mind encompassed it, I could carve. Like a maniac! I used the new awareness to carve harder on my tight side and ease up on the side that is already perpetually in "carve" mode. What a blast!

Clearly, I am ecstatic about the literal implications of loving kindness towards my back. The metaphoric meaning is powerful, too. Mindfulness and loving acceptance - of myself, my environment, my limitations, my strengths - are the bedrock from which all good flows. Especially when life banks steeply.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc