Zen and Motorcycles

Obviously, motorcycles are not for everyone and even I prefer to ride on country roads and not in heavy traffic in heavy winds, rain or snow and not around big trucks.

However, there can be a Zen to motorcycle riding. Let me prepare you a little so it is more useful. For example, there is a Zen Koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping.
For most people this is an impossible question but that is exactly the point of a Zen Koan--to temporarily break your mind so that you can be here and now and not somewhere in the distant future(that hasn't happened yet) or in the distant past(that has already happened and won't likely come again unless you are a time traveler). So, in addition to being a path to instant enlightenment, it is a path to being totally now and in the present, rather than being in the past or future which robs both you and everyone else you are around of you being completely in the present.

One more story to prepare you just for fun. There is a story of a Buddhist monk who was wandering along a path and spied a tiger who wanted to eat him. He tried to run away from the tiger but fell over a cliff. On his way over the cliff he grabbed a strawberry plant just over the cliff. He looked down and if he fell he would not only break something but another tiger was waiting to eat him. He looked above and saw another tiger waiting to eat him. He spies a strawberry that is ripe and juicy so what does he do? A Zen master would tell you, "He eats the strawberry!" This is Zen in action.

So, for me, I'm eating the strawberry! I'm 61 years old. Ten years ago my doctors told me I would die for about 7 months. So I retired. After the 7 months they told me I might live to 80 or 90. Meanwhile my wife's mother and stepmother had passed away while I thought I was dying too. Two weeks before I was told I would be okay my wife had a miscarriage. It was an impossibly difficult year and I found myself traumatized in a way I had never really been before in my life. I had never(as an adult) had to deal with so much in any one year. The biggest difference was that I had to be careful when I slept because my blood circulation wasn't as good after the heart virus and my feet might turn blue in the night while I was asleep.

However, the real miracle happened about 2 years ago when I was 59. My physical trainer from Germany was listening to my symptoms and said, "I think you have a thyroid problem like me. You should get your doctor to test you." So I did and started taking Armour Thyroid medicine and now I feel like I'm 30 again just with more aches pains of being 61. But in my mind and my emotions I feel like I'm thirty and young and healthy and balanced once again. So I'm eating the strawberry. I bought a dualsport motorcycle, a 650(dirt and street combo) and I'm eating the strawberry. Even my wife says she will ride with me away from traffic. So I'm eating the strawberry!

I'm seeing relatives all around me living more and more into their 90s and 100s. So, I'm living now like that will be true for me too. Will it? God only knows.

Last of all the Zen Koan of one of my teachers, "If you are ready to die right now you may live forever. But if you want to live forever you may die right now!" This Zen Koan really says it all for me! However, only a real mature adult person can actually fully understand just how powerful this Koan is. It is the ultimate warrior's stance for thousands of years and is the Koan of the survival of the human race!