Skid Recovery

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.  May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey in the Zen Calendar (August 5, 2004).

Like dew that vanishes,
like a phantom that disappears, 
or the light cast by a flash of lightning -
so should one think of oneself. - Ikkyu in the Zen Calendar (August 20, 2001).

At any given moment, I open my eyes and exist.  And before that, during all eternity, what was there?  Nothing. - Ugo Betti in the Zen Calendar (August 14, 2002).

Right now a moment of time is passing by! . . . We must become that moment. - Paul Cezanne in the Zen Calendar (October 2, 2006).

One chance, one encounter. - Zen Saying in the Zen Calendar (July 4, 2009).

Day 360.  Six blogs to go.  Sort of boggles my mind.  My little mind.  Big Mind is boggle proof.

Peak Experience!  On this, the last weekend of my blogging year, Nick of Windsong Dojo, with gracious and perfect timing hosted his teacher, Jiun Hosen Osho, for a weekend zazen retreat.   It began tonight with dharma talk and zazen.  When Jiun Hosen was talking about attachment, she said, " . . . and you develop attachment to your kids and your parents and your dog and your IPad -- Man, those things are cool, aren't they? I have a Droid."  I cracked up, and interpreted it as a sign that I am, indeed, meant to purchase an IPad of my own.

Before I went to the dojo this evening, I rode another spectacular two laps at Draper.  Who knew so much enlightenment awaited me on the twisting, sandy trails less than three miles from my home?  I rode with my friend Shellye (Gassho, Shellye, for being a female badass on your bike!) on one of the laps.  It was during my first solo lap, however, that something Zen-like and therefore blog-worthy occurred.

The incident itself was totally mundane:  my back tire skidded sideways on a fast downhill curve, and I almost crashed.  As mountain biking goes, this is by no means a noteworthy event.  The reason I am describing it now is because of the thoughts that arose about it during meditation with Jiun Hosen.  Reflecting upon my skid recovery in the silence of the dojo imbued it with significance.

The essence of zazen is being fully conscious of the present moment.  So conscious, in fact, that consciousness falls away and I merge with the moment - such that we both disappear completely.  In her answer to a question I posed about the innumerable times I have to refocus my attention during zazen (thank you, Robust Monkeys), Jiun Hosen said that in any given meditation session we are constantly giving birth to each moment.  And the next one, and the next.  I asked her about ". . . discontinuity versus continuity of the moments in which I remain fully in the present. . . " i.e. I humbly disclosed that I have a nagging attachment to the idea that my "second" of fully entering a moment will eventually expand to, uh, maybe five seconds.  Jiun Hosen said that, through years of zazen, one may develop a shift from the "consciousness state" of our unenlightened self to a more ongoing state of "un-conscious" -- meaning that we experience increasingly longer segments of life while being fully in the moment, surrendering the illusions that usually crowd our perspective and distort our reality.  Wow - if I hadn't so magnificently mastered the idea of no attainment, that sounds like a state I definitely want to attain.

Back to recovering from a mountain bike skid.  On sandy trails, I probably average four or five "almost" crashes per ride if I am going all out.  When I am riding with my partner, he usually says, "Nice save!" when I execute the automatic, instantaneous reflex my body has learned to avoid crashing.  Then we ride on.   This particular skid recovery, however, probably would have prompted something like, "Holy crap!  I can't believe you saved that!  I thought you were going down!"

I was ripping around a curve on a fast descent when my back tire skidded in  loose sand, my bike slid sideways, the front tire lost traction, and my handlebars twisted and dipped toward the ground.  My right hip and knee almost grazed the dirt.  It was in that instant that I gave birth to a moment.   My instinctive save was a rare and likely unrepeatable maneuver.  I didn't think about it, anticipate it, or consciously control it.   I cannot recall, describe, or analyze it because I WAS it.  In the next moment, I was upright and flying on down the trail.  Naturally, there was  nobody behind to bear witness.  But if there had been, I bet he would have yelled, "Hell of a save!!"

I am beginning to understand that my skid recovery was a sliver of enlightenment.  All this time I've been sitting on my cushion looking everywhere else for Nirvana when the miraculous Reality of it sits on ME - calmly licking its chops.  Enlightenment is there -- in every single instant -- if I can simply stay out of its way with my thoughts, my intentions, my effort, my noise, my self consciousness.  The skid metaphor is sublime:  I could NEVER do that move if I planned it or consciously tried to repeat it.  It belonged to that moment!  The only reason it happened was PRECISELY because I DIDN'T effort or intend or try.  My experience and "practice" at mountain biking simply manifested itself.  In effortless, thoughtless, consciousless action.  I didn't have to do a thing.  It was there all along.

A sandy curve on a dirt trail became my One Chance, One Encounter.  Whatever my body did to prevent the crash took less than a second.  If I count the second or two before the skid and the second or two after it, I may have just strung together five seconds of Enlightenment for the very first time.   Not bad, for 360 days on my cushion.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc