Moto-meditation

I teach yoga which means I also teach people to meditate but it’s a rare day that I find mediating on a cushion in silence at all appealing. I’ll do it, for a minute or two, but the only true clear-your-head-clean-your-soul-become-one-with-the-universe meditation I have ever found is far from the yoga studio-It’s on my bike.

My partner taught me to ride during a difficult time in my life when I needed a good distraction. It was his idea, not mine, but two blocks into my first solo ride and that was it. I had my own bike a few weeks later, within days riding became “yoga on wheels” and Suzi, my sweet silver Suzuki Savage, became the best meditation coach I have ever had.

We meditate to slow down and connect with our breath and bodies. We meditate to quiet the Monkey Mind and release the need to process and figure and sort and worry and obsess and solve. We meditate to unscatter and cultivate focus. We meditate to become one with nature, the elements and everything around us. We meditate to find peace, tranquility and joy. We meditate to down regulate and create a sense of calm. We meditate to find clarity and to become more mindful and aware.

We meditate to stop time, to become present.

We meditate to renew our mind, body, heart and soul.

The moment I put my helmet on the chatter in my mind begins to quiet, little by little like the volume turning down on a skipping record, my thoughts just fade away. I stop trying to solve all of my problems, I don’t worry about next week or last year or taxes or an extra ten pounds or my kids' grades or how much work I have to do. I’m not rehearsing conversations or balancing my checking account or wishing I would have said this or not said that.

The very instant I swing my leg over my bike my vinyl seat becomes my meditation cushion. I am right there. On my bike. Nowhere else. In the moment. I’m listening to my engine, I’m watching for potholes, gravel and squirrels all the while making sure the girl in the Jeep texting her bff sees me before she switches lanes.

I am present- 100%.

Whether I’m riding in town, by the river, in the desert, around the lake or in the mountains I am feeling the air, the sun and the rain. I am smelling the trees, the apples, the ocean, the algae bloom in the still lake. On the bike I know, in a visceral sense, the season, the time of day and the temperature. I know if the forest is pine or fir and if that is a dairy farm or a lavender field around the next corner. On the bike I am connected to nature, the elements and every bit of the world around me, down to the surface I ride on. I literally feel nature, I become part of it.

Junk builds up in our minds and hearts just like it builds up in our closets or our garage. We are constantly bombarded with negativity and stress. Meditation helps to clear the junk, the clutter, the unnecessary. On the bike we focus on what’s important right now. What matters and what doesn’t and what doesn’t matter just sort of disappears. When I ride I am mindful of every move I make and every decision is either well thought out or instinctual. There’s no in between. I am hyper-aware of my surroundings. I have focus. We all do on our bikes.

When we chose to go on a ride, to take the time with our bikes, we are choosing to take time away from the other things we do with our lives. We are consciously choosing to not be at work or gardening or in class or in front of the television. We are choosing to be on our bike, the same way we might choose to go to yoga, we are choosing to find focus, be part of nature and our surroundings, we are choosing to leave the rest of the world behind and be in the moment. We do this for a reason. We ride because it gives us something. It does more than scratch an itch, it fills us with a sense of peace and tranquility, it quiets the monkey and connects us to everything. We find solace, community, strength and joy. On the bike we can find the calm we yearn for and the answers we seek.

Don’t get me wrong, I love yoga but when it comes to meditation, the kind that renews my mind, body, heart and soul I choose Kevlar over spandex and wheels over a mat any day. I choose to breathe and om with the hum of my engine and the whistling of the wind in the backround. Moto-meditation returns me to my life refreshed, renewed and revitalized. I’m pretty sure that if such a thing as enlightenment exists and if I am to ever find it it won't be in an ashram in India or a yoga studio in Oregon or even reclining in my own bedroom…it will be on the road with Suzi.

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