by Michele Chavez
Long before I became a Buddhist, my religion was Running. It’s still a big part of my physical and spiritual life. In fact, I've always found Running profoundly meditative. And the proverbial Runner's High exists and is the closest thing I've ever experienced to pure bliss.
I run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I cross-train by bicycling. I thoroughly enjoy both activities.
In the wee morning hours of most Saturday mornings, my husband and I make a 65-mile trip to Santa Monica to run with the Los Angeles Leggers, a running and social club that trains people for marathons and half marathons.
Our club is focusing this year on both the LA Marathon in February and the new Pasadena Marathon in November.
My duties as a pace group mentor include sending out a weekly email to our pace group members, telling them what time we meet, how far we are running, and what route we are taking, as well as anything else they need to know. I try to make the email encouraging and entertaining by including uplifting running quotes.
To that end, I was browsing through the late great Dr. George Sheehan’s classic Running and Being this week and read the following passages from the chapter entitled “Meditating”:
The first half hour of my run is for my body. The last half hour, for my soul. In the beginning the road is a miracle of solitude and escape. In the end it is a miracle of discovery and joy . . .
. . . for that hour I am a solitary. And I begin with that same discipline and control, now needed for the strong, steady pace against the headwind and the hills along the river road. In that first half hour I become my body. My body is me and I am the body. And I know that only in its fullness will I be all that I will be. I delight in my energy, my strength, my power as I pass by the freshly greening fields. In a world coming alive with the energy in spring, I feel myself come alive, come back from being split and splintered, and becoming whole. I am a total and perfect runner.
And in this perfection, this ease of movement, this harmony, this rhythmic breathing of life into life, I am able to let my mind wander. I absent myself from road and wind and warm sun. I am free to meditate, to measure the importance of things. I am purified by the effort that has gone before, drained of pride, filled with childlike grace and innocence; the energy of my body becomes an energy of the mind. . .
Dr. Sheehan has been described as “our most important philosopher of sport” (by Sports Illustrated). I wish I had just a small portion of his profound eloquence and insight. I read what he wrote and think he should have been a poet. He was actually a medical doctor, a cardiologist who ran. Throughout his career as a runner, he wrote regularly about both the physical and spiritual, mostly the spiritual. His words never fail to move me and I identify with them deeply.
While not a substitute for sitting meditation or chanting, I cherish the time I spend in “running meditation.” It’s my opportunity to turn inward and let whatever thoughts occur just flow. Just as when I chant to the Gohonzon, I find I tap into that creative, intuitive place inside, the area where solutions to problems lie, sliding into my mind unbidden.
I am now turned from home. I am going downwind and in those miles I become unentangled. I move out of thickets that have constrained me. Out of underbrush that has reduced me to futile plans and more futile action.
I move beyond ambition and envy, beyond pleasure and diversion. In those miles downwind, I have a new vision of myself and the universe. The running is easy, automatic, yet full of power, strength, precision. A tremendous energy pours through my body. I am whole and holy. And the universe is whole and holy and full of meaning. In the passion of this running, truth is being carried, as the poet says, alive into the my heart.
This is the moment in my running when I feel one with the universe. Running is effortless and I’m floating. I feel that I’m like a river paddleboat, my legs part of a great wheel, spinning, turning, but never quite touching the ground.
So in those final miles meditation becomes contemplation. What has been a measuring of things becomes an awareness of the sacred. The road now becomes sacred ground, the temple the word contains. There are cars and traffic, noise and exhaust, but I am past sight and sound, past this disturbance. I know or, better, I experience the whole of what Blake said.
Man has no body distinct from the soul. Energy is the only life and is from the body; and reason is the outward circumference of energy. And energy is indeed eternal delight.
So as my run ends I am back in my body. The energy I felt at the beginning of the run gradually filling my mind and soul, gradually creating a unity, a wholeness, a peak feeling of being one with myself and the universe. What they call in zen, satori.
Even though Dr. Sheehan was a devout Christian, he experienced through running what we who chant and/or meditate experience through our Buddhist practice. Which leads me to believe that it's not one exclusive belief and it's not one method of practice alone that leads to enlightenment.
And if at that moment I still don’t know the answers to the last dramatic questions of my existence and yours and the existence of the universe, at the very least I know now these answers do exist.
And tomorrow I will be out on the roads seeking them once more.
And so will I.
She’s baaaaack!
A bit of Buddhist (and not-so-Buddhist) rambling from Queen Lolo.
But first:
Q. How many women does it take to author a Buddhist blog?
A. Four.
One to suggest the idea. One to head the “What should we name it?" committee. One to make sure everyone is happy. And one to email gentle reminders that in spite of work, kids, the flu, school, romance, computer problems, global warming, annoying neighbors, meetings, appointments, and spiritual awakenings…
It’s time for a new entry on Fraught With Peril.
So hello again everyone. I am beyond thrilled to be back and sharing quarters with a dazzling flock of brilliant, outspoken, compassionate, and open-hearted Buddhist dakinis, collectively sharing our own personal, spiritual journeys, insights, rants and raves. May I say, from the depths of my ink-stained soul…
Oh what a relief it is!
You see, I, Queen Lolo, had been royally booted off this site in the past for lack of consistent participation. (Is it just me, or does anyone else have the sense that Rev. Greg is hovering nearby, fist in hand and tongue in cheek, making sure we all toe (or cross) the line?)
But as our hero, Buddha, liked to mention, the only thing we can count on is CHANGE. (Or was that “the only thing we can count on is suffering?”) And as many things have changed – some quite tragically – I am now back on this site, secure in the knowledge that we four ladies have each other’s backs and can do what nice girls do best. Take turns. Lighten each other's loads. Keep the peace. (And go to the bathroom together?)
Of course, we can do what bad girls do best, too. So don’t hesitate to sling whatever you want our way. All comments welcome. Just hold the spam.
On a serious note (don’t worry, it’ll be a quickie), the four of us Chicks did do a lot of back-and-forth brainstorming about the name of this blog page. With my own particular history here, I was feeling a bit Virginia Woolfish (or at least using her in self-defense) and suggested “A Room of One’s Own” as our page title.
After all, the ebbs and flows of my writing here had everything to do with the demands of juggling a family, a career, a marriage, a divorce, the laundry, and everything else that goes into being a female creature on this planet. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write…” said Woolfe.
Then again, Virginia didn’t have a team of brave Buddhist babes to shares the labor. Nor did she have a Buddhist practice to pave the way toward such ideal solutions. Still, I thought it would be amusing to toy with her famous words in our title. But since this is a room of more than ONE, the suggested heading morphed into “A Woman’s Room.”
And then it sounded too much like a public restroom. (Why does it always come down to this when girls get together?)
So finally we did what good girls do. We decided not to make it about us. We decided to honor the name of the woman who inadvertently brought us together, and to keep her memory and energy and gusto alive by calling our new nest, Byrd’s Chicks. We all agreed to go with the majority opinion. (Then we all got caught up in our family and work lives and let it slide until someone kicked butt and slapped the name on the page and HERE WE ARE!)
Yippie!
Before I wrap up this up and go back to yelling at my kids to clean up the kitchen... I want to mention I have a note stuck in my mirror, with three lines written by the late, great, Bryd. It says,
“Be cool. Be confident. Be adventurous!"
I didn't know Byrd personally. But I know that to be cool, confident, and adventurous, you gotta be a little bit of a bad girl. Or a lot of one.
And since Bryd is the energetic inspiration behind this blog...
Consider yourself warned.
Bryd's Chicks have arrived.
And we just might not be what you expect.
Today, I had the wonderful experience of preparing some carrots a friend at work gave to me. He apparently has an amazingly prolific garden, and I profit thereby... I have plenty of lovely fresh vegetables, locally grown. I was preparing them, more gently, I suppose, than I might otherwise, because I knew the fellow who had prepared them, and how much work they were.
It occurred to me that I don't typically use such care and thoughtfulness when preparing any other food.
I then began pondering the concept of food within a Buddhist framework, as I understand it.
I thought about those carrots. My friend had bought the seeds from half a continent away. Those seeds had traveled miles, transported by a number of people, to reach his house. He then planted and nourished them, using water from a well someone else had dug, and compost enhanced by the neighbor's chicken manure. The sun, rain and soil all did their part. Then the carrots traveled again, toted by my neighbor to me, over roads built decades ago.
They must have been exhausted!
But seriously, those simple carrots were the result of the work of weather, and a large cast of humans and other animals over decades. The scope of interconnectedness is mindboggling, humbling, and aroused in me an enormous appreciation for this simple food. A simple demonstration that things are never truly independent, in the final analysis, from anything else. Even "I" am not a stand-alone entity. I am now part of the efforts and processes that all culminated in the production of that carrot, and I carry forward all the energy of the processes and people involved.
Food is also one thing, one experience, we share with all other humans. We all must eat to live. Nichiren speaks of food being one of humanity' treasures. Most of us know what it is to be hungry, and the contentment that comes with enough food. Because this is an experience we understand, we can relate to the pain that comes from insufficient food, and feel compassion for those who lack food, and work to diminish their pain. We can also summon up gratitude for the food we do have to eat.
And it's hard to be gluttonous - to indulge in Greed - when you start thinking about just how precious and wonderful food really is, to every living being. At least, when I am being mindful, I find I really slow down and savor my food, rather than chowing down mindlessly (which I am known to do on occasion), and am inclined to think about how I can share my wealth of food with others.
One part of my daily practice that is really useful to me personally is reciting a prayer before my dinner meal. I use this prayer in the Nichiren Shu tradition.
"The rays of the sun, moon and stars
which nurture our spirits and the five grains of the earth earth, which nourish oiur bodies, are all gifts of the Eternal Buddha. Even a drop of water or a grain of rice is the result of meritorious work and hard labour.
May this meal help us maintain a healthy body, mind, spirit in order to uphold the teachings of the Buddha, repay the Four Favours, and perform the pure conduct of serving others. "
Some folks may find this formulaic or trivial. I choose to recite it because it is beautiful and meaningful to me (and I sometimes modify it a bit, with items that are pertinent to me in the here and now, like "Thank you to Bob for thinking of me when he dug up his carrots). I find the discipline of doing so very helpful on a day to day basis. It serves as a useful touchstone to living my practice, and seems to reorient me to what I understand to be "Right View". Which in turn, helps me interact with others in a more Bodhisattva like manner.
Here's to a good meal and the treasure that it is.
Kris
After Byrd died, four of her friends decided to carry on in her tradition -- writing here on Fraught with Peril.
We are (in alphabetical order):
Kris Alvarez, who met Byrd in a Lotus Sutra study group several years ago.
Jean Anker, who wrote the Elegy for Byrd.
Lauren Brenner, well-known to Fraught with Peril readers as Queen Lolo.
Michele Chavez, who became friends with Byrd at the Gathering of Friends, an independent Buddhist meeting held monthly by Bill and Jean Anker.
We plan to alternate posts. Some of us may write more often than others, but we will all be responsible for writing something each month.
We each have different understandings and views about Buddhism, but all
share a deep respect for and desire to honor Byrd. We hope what we have to say will be of interest to Fraught with Peril’s readers.