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Quakers (and certain Zen Buddhists) consider spirituality to be much more active than simply going to meeting. Being alive, awake, alert, aware, sensing, breathing – this sort of “daily mindfulness” is easier to connect to while I am on a bicycle.
There is an interesting duality to bicycling (beyond the two wheels/two legs aspect) that, for me, goes a bit like this:
As I ride along, breathing hard, leg muscles stretching, eyes and ears alert to everything around me, skin alive to the weather – sun or rain or cool shady spot by a river – I am exceptionally self-centered. The universe fades far away, and I am aware of my heart, my lungs, my rhythm of circling pedals and spinning spokes.
As I continue to ride, thoughts begin to quiet, and then vanish – I am not in past or future, I am simply riding, breathing, sub-consciously focused on balance, but nothing much happening in the main brain – not angry or worried or happy or stressed about work or love or the sorry state of the world.
There is a simplicity here, in me as in us all – Just as we all have the Light, we all breathe and move, and we spend entirely too much time (in my opinion of society) away from ourselves – disconnected from our own sensations, our own souls, no longer aware of the intensity of the Light that we each carry. Occasionally, I will feel myself as I sit in meeting, but imagine if we knew ourselves regularly how much easier it would be to truly listen to others, to bond with them and unravel their views from our own.
And on the same bicycle, within the same body, even on the same ride – there is an overwhelming rushing wave of awareness, literally an awe-inspiring sense of the dynamic interconnectedness of everything – me to bicycle to ground to sky to clouds to sun to globe and everyone breathing the same air, illuminated by the same Light. I am insignificantly teensy, a merest spec of panting flesh atop some bits of aluminum and rubber. The sky’s blue was completely through me one ride – not above, not around, not even part of me – I was subsumed by total clarity.
It didn’t take many experiences like that to nurture seeds of belief, to solidly feel in my soul that “there is more”, to quiet the agnostic queries and just be and believe.
There is nothing particularly magic about a bicycle, though it is an engineering marvel. All that I have experienced could just as easily be felt walking across the street, or helping tutor someone, cooking dinner, or tucking a loved one into bed. In fact, due to those rare moments of insight while on a bicycle, I strive to keep my eyes open, since the next delicious moment of this heaven on earth is right now – if only it gets noticed. |
