Meditation – Biking the Path

A cultivated habit

I was reading recently that “Rituals bring comfort when we stumble under the pressures and demands of everyday existence… Knowing how to live well is a cultivated habit, and rituals can help.” (L’art de la simplicité, Dominique Lorean.).

With this I remembered the practice of daily meditation, a ritual I adopted as part of my life. A ritual that, by being such, stops to be a repetitive action.

How is possible that the habit of meditating becomes something so useful for a good life? Well, this simple act let me be attentive to myself, attentive to what happens, attentive to what I perceive. It allows me to accept myself, as I am, and work from what I know, to live well. It gives me with what I need to be able to decide and choose. It let me live from a perspective of someone that is not in a rush, in a pace that makes me savor what I live.

It doesn’t make me a different person, or a better one. It’s as if I can function within my capacities and potential. So rituals may turn a simple chore into something important, that you live consciously.

What kind of rituals do you have in your life?

Just do it!

Español

A few days ago, we were enjoying an afternoon tea and chatting. Someone said that she couldn’t make time to exercise. You know, take the decision, getting ready, and actually doing it.

Some days later, she was very happy, cause she started with her program. She said that it was like doing the bed (she read the book “Make your bed”, by William H. McRaven), very easy, “Just do it! Make yourself do what you want to do”.

Many of our chores, things we have to do or want to do, are done because we decide to do them. Choose one thing, say when you are going to do it, and keep up with it. Stop asking why, or doing something else instead. Just be prepared and do it.

The same happens with meditation, or riding the bicycle. I know it, I’ve been there. I have been ready for a ride, but decided to do something else. Or I have turned off the alarm in the morning, started thinking about getting ready for my morning meditation, and be overwhelmed by the huge task ahead….and going back to my dreams.

It’s surprising how decision and focus can make in our lives. Just plan ahead, get ready without much thinking, and do the task.

What riding can teach us

(en español)

Sometimes I think that there may be people thinking: what is he talking about, bicycles and zen, or meditation?

Well, let me tell you that back in the 70’s there was a very popular book called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, by Robert M. Pirsig. I didn’t read the book, since I was not interested in motorcycles, but the idea got stocked in my mind.

Then I discovered that zen was not a thing of the temple only, but a way one sees life, and the way we do whatever we do. And bicycling, not racing, but riding a bike, was an activity that allows you to be in the present moment, now, with full attention.

When I started with meditation, and trying to have a rich spiritual life, what I constantly found was the reference of a path. So I had to move, in a direction. Well, I thought, what a wonderful thing! I have a bicycle, I can ride the path. And discovered that, like practicing martial arts as I did, or drawing, I could bike the path.

A few months ago I was in the bookstore, wandering after picking the book I needed, when I spotted a little book: Mindful thoughts for cyclists, by Nick Moore. What a discovery! I was very excited. I bought it and started to read. I have given the book to other three bicycle enthusiasts. I gave the first one, even without finishing the reading, to a new friend, Cecilia. It’s a beautiful book.

At the end of the book we can read: “The awareness we can cultivate on the bike can help us to detach ourselves from desire and entrenched thought patterns and view things more objectively. It’s raining. It’s cold. This hill is steep. I am traveling at 25 miles per hour. That’s it. No value judgement, no good/bad, right/wrong. The moment is sufficient unto itself. Does it need to be about anything else?”