The author at the summit of Hawk Hill, Sausalito, California behind the Golden Gate Bridge, March 2017
"There are two types of people in life: watchers and doers." - Juliana Buhring (cyclist) Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We'd run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile. So this morning he said to me "We're going to go for five." I said, "Bruce, I can't go five. I'm helluva lot older than you are, and I can't do five." He said, "When we get to three, we'll shift gears and it's only two more and you'll do it." I said, "Okay, hell, I'll go for it." So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I'm okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I'm tired, my heart's pounding, I can't go any more and I say to him, "Bruce if I run any more - and we're still running - "If I run any more I'm liable to have a heart attack and die." He said, "Then die." It made me so mad I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, "Why did you say that?" He said, "Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physically or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." - Stirling Silliphant (Student of Bruce Lee) Imagine an abyss of darkness characterized by filth, dirt, mold and grime. Imagine, if you will, a family gripped by death - its markers so apparent the pangs of guilt predetermine their actions. Imagine slowly suffocating in a quagmire of deception, manipulation, platitudes and lies. Imagine, if you will, that this is considered familiar - normal even. The basics of fight or flight. Survival mode strategies. Constantly living in a state of anxiety. Reaching for the freezer - you feed your face. Kick back a beer. Smoke. Lethargic apathetic lumps sitting soaking up radiation from television or the computer screen. Repeat the process. Such is modern living. Imagine you enter a spiritual community and become reacquainted with your former self. A spiritual reawakening of the mind, body and spirit. Your soul reactivates. You see a myriad of colors free from the trauma space. The thunderbolt. Insight. Movement. The shedding of weight. The quest for happiness and joy. To be at ease. Sought through exercise, dance, cycling, walking, yoga and the climbing of multiple apparatuses made of steel. One morphs, changes, transforms. The sculpting of desired perfection. In face of multiple disabilities. You arrive. The emergence of the authentic self. Self actualized. Deities guide the way. Hints and glimmers suggest synchronicity as the path unfolds: Amitabha, Pandara, Mahamayuri, Kwan Yin, Tara in various forms, and Kwan Kung. Incense lit ablaze emoting gratitude, passion, fire, compassion and loyalty. The touch of a monk on drive-side (right) injured leg. Resulting dreams of a Hmong East Oakland compound. Agrarian. Smiles. Home. Offerings of seeds and clippings. Searching for the fertile soil. Intuitive guides to the Other Side. The tongue touching the roof of the mouth. Collapse. Tears. Release. The resulting transformation just moments in. The ink. The work. The symbols. The scabs. The shedding. The arrival. Quiz-like admiration in the face of dubious Christian judgement subsumed by the air of death. Marked by preoccupations of right and wrong. Dizzy in a polemic dance of gossip - tired and aged by (dis)ease marked by ruts laid upon mud - its routes replayed in a cycle of grief, despair and disrepair. The thunderbolt. Liberation. To be. Awaken. Shatter imposed judgement. Disavow material gain. To hell with money. For reconnecting with the body, mind and spirit presents entertainment in of itself. To locate the joy within free from the mandates of manufactured entertainment. To sculpt. To be in awe. To be rewarded. To be seen. Heard. Noticed. To climb slowly out of the abyss of death. To loosen and break free from the clutch of Kumari - Kali. To enter the light after years upon years of spiritual death. To reawaken free from a manufactured Jesus claimed by many in essentialist fashion - fought over like the crumbs of careerism. Their tongues exclaim Satan when in fact they are lost. Lost in the grip of death. They find joy in psychoanalysis. Lost in the minds of others. They neglect their own. I swing like a majestic monkey. Breathe deep. Awaken the lungs previously mired by smoke. Ujjayi-like moans liberate the hips as I swing upside down. Legs extend back parallel to the ground. Insect like tenacity. I morph and change. Free the hips from (dis)information - years of academic murk leading to nowhere. The cyclical spin of the mind. Chasing dreams of this or that. Hyper-criticism leading to obesity - negatives manifested in cellulite. A sponge of grief. The university of consumption marked by the lure of normalcy - marriage, offspring and vicarious living. The peacock struts its dance. A vehicle of Amitabha, Kwan Yin, Mahamayuri. Feathers mark my skin as I take flight - targets in sight. Goals to attend to. Morphing. Changing. Realizing. The double breath opening channels once blocked awaken the eyes. The marker is set. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Destination(s) (un)known. For I do not watch. Watch me. Do.
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