Monday, December 12, 2011

the bodhisattvas

i've always found it hard to explain the experience of endurance sports, particularly ultra-endurance sports. but people always ask, and so i feel compelled to try.

i've described it before as a spiritual exercise. an activity that through the physical transcends the corporeal to greater communion with the ineffable. there are certain moments that happen in the course of the distance that just cannot be described in mere words. especially around mile 130, especially when you're alone, out in the elements exposed in the darkness bare before the universe. when you lose all pretensions (and delusions) of your own grandeur and come face to face with the stark precipice of the endless abyss.

it's there that you have a reckoning. with yourself, your life, your world, your god(s). with nothing between you and the reality of the mystery of mysteries.

although this doesn't really do it justice. it's not an easy thing to talk about, even as much as i offer explanations regarding how and when and where and what and why.

i have, however, come across another way of describing things that might help.

Buddhism (again, i'm not Buddhist, but i, like so many others in endurance sports, find its concepts useful in describing the experience of dealing with suffering, especially when--given the nature of our sport--it's of our own making, whether by choice or by accident or by ignorance or fate) involves the concept of the bodhisattvas. it's a word found in Sanskrit and Pali that's an agglomeration of 2 different concepts: "bodhi" being enlightenment or wisdom, and "sattva" (or "satva") being a noble being.

beyond the literal translation, there are 2 major interpretations given for the word arising from the 2 major schools of Buddhism. Mahayana ("great path," associated largely with East Asia, primarily China, the Koreas, and Japan) uses the word to refer to figures who have reached enlightenment, but out of compassion forestall their detachment from the cycle of suffering to help others move on their own paths towards enlightenment. Hinayana ("small path"), particularly in its only surviving line of Theravada (seen largely in Southeast Asia), uses the word in association with the stage of Siddartha Gautama's life before he became the Buddha, and applies it as a metaphor to describe individuals who are on the path to enlightenment.

on a figurative level, i find both interpretations apt. we describe life as a journey to unknown destinations from we which we acquire more understanding about the mysteries of existence in the vast expanse of a limitless universe. as grand as they are, every race is a life in microcosm, with each one replete with its own story, complete with its own lessons, and hence its own path towards its own truths adding to our understanding of our lives. seen this way, the analogy extends farther, and we can see each training session, and each mile and each step and each repetition, and indeed each act and each word and each breath and each thought, as its own path with its own revelations, and so an individual existence in miniature. as small and insignificant but as great and profound as the place of our lives in the majesty that lies within the eternity of creation.

and within this space, within each moment, within each mile within each race within each life, we realize how much is shared with others around us. and we realize they are on paths very much different but yet very much the same as our own. and that we are all traveling to the same places to find the same truths.

and it's then that we find compassion, and it's then we help each other the best way we can. even as much as we only control what we control: ourselves. we still try to show each other the way forward.

i haven't seen a race without an act of compassion, and i hope i never do.

i haven't seen a race without a realization of truths, and i hope i never do.

i haven't seen a race that is not a journey.

and i hope i never do.

because in the end we are all just pilgrims seeking wisdom on paths approaching the mystery shared by creatures given life by the supreme glory of the cosmos that becomes the divine.

and that makes the experience sacred.

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