The Vision - Out of My Mind and No Thoughts
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I’m in a good place now, because I’m very “present”. My attention is focused on the here-and-now. I don’t feel the need to run from something or run to something. I’m very cognizant of that as I contemplate another journey. The outward and inward journeys of life are ultimately part of the One journey. As I’ve experienced previously, travel and being on the road can quicken the experiencing of awakening to those truths we hold deep within our Being. Travel is a great thing. A means to experience the world, people, places, and to learn about yourself. For me at times, travel was the catalyst for that inward journey. I felt the need to be on the road to light that spark inside me and ignite awareness.
It’s always been clear to me about traveling by motorcycle. Being on the motorcycle requires you to be in the Now. Thoughts of the past or future cannot exist for very long when you’re on the bike. The nature of the ride is that you are engaged and in the moment. I go back to a quote that sums it up best.
“What could I say? Maybe this: the man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is outside time; in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy; in that state he is unaware of his age, his wife, his children, his worries, and so he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear.”
My life is not always on the road. It involves relationships and responsibilities that are grounded in what could be considered the more mundane. My “Journey in Place” over the last year might not seem as epic as my previous journeys. However, it is my life and I’ve come to terms with the basic truth that bringing presence and awareness into everything we do, wherever we are, in this very moment, is fundamental to living a spiritual life, to diminishing suffering, and to walking on the path of enlightenment. There was a point when I wasn’t too sure that was possible for me. It was just too effortless to do it on the road and so difficult to do it in-place at home. My argument was about how important the environment you exist in is to joy and well-being. I thought, if you can pick a place and/or an activity, an environment that didn’t contain the “noise” of life, then it would be easy to be enlightened and joyful. Well, that might be true to a degree, but that’s not human existence. There’s always something that can be perceived as a problem or a “monkey-wrench,” regardless of the environment and situation you are in. Perception and living in the moment are the key. Any heaven can be turned into hell and any hell turned into heaven. The realization that I didn’t have to make a physical journey to exercise my soul, and that an enlightened path could unfold right here-and-now in-place at home was an important step for me. I recently read the following quote that affirmed my experience and conclusion.
“The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing, and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now — that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality. Slipping away from the present moment even for a second may mean death. Unfortunately, they come to depend on a particular activity to be in that state. But you don’t need to climb the north face of the Eiger. You can enter that state now.”
Why go anywhere? Why do anything? Stay home, stick to your routine, you’re in the Now, you’re present, you’re on the right path, just take it easy. That all may be correct and at times it is, but sometimes there are new experiences to be had, new adventures to encounter, and things to learn that can only be found by the doing of something new. Sometimes you feel the need to stretch, to exercise your soul in different ways, maybe it’s a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts, maybe it’s the desire to see new things, maybe it’s simply wanting to sit on the motorcycle and roll through the miles. Quite possibly it’s as simple as wanting to smell the air and see the sky from a different vantage point, somewhere else down the road.
For me, it’s all of these things and more and no-thing. It’s about removing expectations. For me taking another epic journey is a way to make room for serendipity and inspiration in my life. “The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” That’s the definition of “serendipity” I talked about on a previous journey and that is when I believe adventure finds you. So, if a great adventure unfolds marked by fireworks and marching bands in a loud celebration of experiences over my next journey, well that would be cool. But if it is simply me carrying a smile on my face and joy in my heart across many miles on the motorcycle, well then, wouldn’t that be the trip of a lifetime. On that note, with no expectations but with excitement for all the no-coincidence serendipitous moments in front me, I set out on a new adventure, part of the continuing adventure of my life.
Out of My Mind, No Thoughts, Into the Now, On the Road, Into Knowingness, I’m embarking on a continuing endeavor of the soul.
I’ll let the miles roll by and the smiles add up.
“To let one’s mind alone to experience but to not try to catch hold of one’s experience in thought ... to let the whole world come to me without interfering with it in any way”