i ride my bike to ride my bike
I'm going to butcher and paraphrase a Buddhist parable.
A monk spots three cyclists and enquires about their activity. "I ride my bike because it's faster than walking."
"I ride my bike because I love watching the scenery rush around me."
"I ride my bike to ride my bike." Upon hearing that, the monk fell to his knees and declared, "I am your student!"
I'm riding my bike for the sole purpose of riding my bike. Listening to podcasts, setting goals of riding up and down every street in my neighborhood, and the like are unimportant. I have to ride, not merely pedal, to get into a meditative state of mind. The Japanese call it "mushin", and one can stretch the definition to "kū" or void. Also there's "suññatā".
When listening to music or a podcast, I become marginally aware of this frame of mind as the noises fade from consciousness and my body becomes the sole agency for using the bicycle. My conscious mind, or left hemisphere's, sole purpose is to listen to the bicycle's various tics, whirrs, and grinds to alert my active right hemisphere to a potential issue. Since the right side tends to think faster, more instinctually and subconsciously, the issue is judged and sorted in the blink of a fruit fly's eye.
How do I know this? The constant stream of mental punishment thrown at myself stops. Musical earworms, especially repeated verses, are silenced. The act of cycling is meditative for me. I have tried regular meditation, it works now and again, sometimes providing hallucinations, but the process pales in comparison to riding my bike.
A monk spots three cyclists and enquires about their activity. "I ride my bike because it's faster than walking."
"I ride my bike because I love watching the scenery rush around me."
"I ride my bike to ride my bike." Upon hearing that, the monk fell to his knees and declared, "I am your student!"
I'm riding my bike for the sole purpose of riding my bike. Listening to podcasts, setting goals of riding up and down every street in my neighborhood, and the like are unimportant. I have to ride, not merely pedal, to get into a meditative state of mind. The Japanese call it "mushin", and one can stretch the definition to "kū" or void. Also there's "suññatā".
When listening to music or a podcast, I become marginally aware of this frame of mind as the noises fade from consciousness and my body becomes the sole agency for using the bicycle. My conscious mind, or left hemisphere's, sole purpose is to listen to the bicycle's various tics, whirrs, and grinds to alert my active right hemisphere to a potential issue. Since the right side tends to think faster, more instinctually and subconsciously, the issue is judged and sorted in the blink of a fruit fly's eye.
How do I know this? The constant stream of mental punishment thrown at myself stops. Musical earworms, especially repeated verses, are silenced. The act of cycling is meditative for me. I have tried regular meditation, it works now and again, sometimes providing hallucinations, but the process pales in comparison to riding my bike.