Last weekend, I participated in an unique athletic event called "the Buddhist biking pilgrimage", produced by the DharmaWheels organization. Organized as a "century ride" - where ambitious bikers ride 100 miles or more, it's designed more as a spiritual pilgrimage than a race.
The event starts with a dharma talk and meditation at Spirit Rock Vipassana Center, and then we begin our ride through some of the loveliest backroad country you can imagine through northern California, and ending up at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and Abhayagiri Monastery in Ukiah. Along the way, we listen to dharma talks, are fed some really terrific vegetarian food, and no one gives a damn who comes in first or last. Within this weekend, the event provides both an extraordinary challenge, both to oneself and one's attachments, as well as a call to service for those supporting the event.
For this year's ride, the organizers decided teach a chant about brahmavihara, a series of four virtues and meditation practices designed to cultivate those virtues. Known as the four "immeasurables" or the Brahma abidings, the Buddha held that cultivation of brahmavihara had the power to cause the practitioner to be re-born into a Brahma realm. During this meditation, as we rode, we were instructed to radiate out to all beings in all directions the mental states of loving-kindness, compassion, blissful joy, and equanimity. The chant goes like this:
I will abide pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness; likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above and below, around and everywhere; and to all as to myself. I will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness; abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill will.
As for me, I've already begun to learn how to combine the sport of road biking with the art of qigong. If you ride the local trails and roads, you might see me someday - the odd Chinese guy off to the side of the road - standing in some strange qigong position, at some particularly beautiful vista point. I've found that strenuous biking causes the internal energy to circulate more strongly, and through that energy, a profound experience of ecstatic bliss is achievable. It's more than just a second wind or an adrenaline rush; and it's much more than just "sports meditation". As I become quiet, this unique heightened state of mindfulness and joy occurs, that is not as easily achievable during sitting and zazen, when it's easier to fall asleep than get a second wind.
However, I had never tried to move beyond mudita, the experience of blissful joy and gladness. So the first part of the ride, I learned to emanate compassion and equanimity – karuna and upekkha - striving to detach from things that irritate or anger us. For me, my pet peeve of the day was that the manufacturer of my clipless pedal had discontinued making these perfectly good pedals, which caused users to hoard the cleats. My left shoe's cleat was broken, and I was unable to purchase a replacement. The problem was that if I put much weight on the left pedal, or rode up a steep hill, the cleat would slip off. So whenever it slipped, I'd curse the Crank Brothers... because it was their fault I was riding with broken cleats. Yeah, right. However, this time, in a state of greater mindfulness, I was able to be gently aware of my cleats, and they never once slipped off. Plus, I felt compassion for the company making the cleats, and decided to stop "making them wrong" and go buy a different make of pedal - yeah, why try to hold onto a piece of the river. Finally, there was plenty of compassion to go around, so I forgave myself for being stubborn and petty about the cleats. These and other thoughts fall away as I ride. Yeah, no pity party for me tonight, I'm on the karuna express.
The event takes place over two days, and the evening is spent at a campground and everyone brings their own tent. The riders are welcomed as they make it into camp (after a VERY long hill), and a gourmet organic vegetarian meal is served, which tastes twice as delicious after riding. Afterwards, the evening program begins out in the open. The monks from Abhayagiri tag along, and set up a dharma hall under the stars. After fifteen minutes of quiet sitting, the abbot of the monastery gives a short but beautiful speech about the nature of the brahmavihara, and I get this strangest feeling that this was the way the Buddha talk, out under the stars, in nature. I can feel a connection to 3000 years ago, and this continuity of dharma over time is comforting. Afterwards, we're all asleep the minute we get into our sleeping bags and our heads hit our makeshift pillows.
Now, before I relate the next meditation, I do have one "magical" occurrence I'd like to share... but it was from the previous year, when I biked this pilgrimage with a pal who had just bought a used bike. Just as we began climbing a major hill, a SAG truck (support and gear) pulled up and the driver asked, "Hey, you want me to ferry you guys over the hill?" Normally, it's a no-no to do this, but my pal saying his gears were clicking... and I got this feeling that something was amiss. So I told my newbie pal to put his bike in the back of the truck with mine, and we were ferried over the hill. It's called Wilson Hill, and I've come down that hill doing maybe 40 mph. Anyway, the SAG truck dropped us off not at the top, but after the daredevil downhill part and back on flat ground. And sure enough, within five minutes, my pal's derailleur failed catastrophically and threw him off the bike. Good thing he was only going 4 mph instead of 40! Over the years, I've learned to listen to intuition when in that state of enhanced mindfulness. Perhaps a deva was whispering in my ear...
Anyway, back to the present, and now I've switched to a metta meditation - radiating loving kindness to all beings in all directions. So I ride along, imagining that I emanate waves of love in every direction, and then it suddenly occurred to me that if my love energy actually made it to the end of the universe, it would wrap around in relativistic spacetime... to end up back in the center of my heart. The kind of thought Einstein would have if he had a hit of ecstasy. So at the exact moment, I realized the meaning of Nagarjuna's quote, "Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love." Love really is infinite if only you can open your mind and heart to it. Feeling like a complete bliss ninny, I arrived at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
This is an exceptional temple. It's the place where a single monk, Hsuan Hua, built this truly impressive meditation hall that contains literally, ten thousand buddha images. All made by hand. By him. You can literally feel the spiritual power in the room. The temple was kind enough to provide us with a very delicious lunch, accompanied by a pair of dharma talks. I particularly enjoyed the story about animals who came to the temple, who would not leave until Master Hua gave them the threefold refuge. Also, there were stories of predatory animals coming to visit the temple, and becoming vegetarian! In my state of bliss, the stories made my eyes well with tears, and I felt only love for all the animals in the world and so glad to be eating vegetarian food that moment.
Incidentally, the abbot of this temple, when he was cremated, produced crystalline relics known as sarira - a kind of pearl or bead-shaped objects that are found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters, a sign of spiritual achievement. These relics, known as dharma body sarira, are considered to be of the same essence as the Buddha himself - they are believed to mysteriously multiply in number while inside their containers if they have been stored under favorable conditions, and there have been testimonies of healings and visions attributed to seeing these relics. A few sarira crystals from Master Hua's cremation are displayed at the entrance to the meditation hall he built. A photograph is shown to the right.
After another short ride, the event concluded at the Abhayagiri Monastery, where a dozen monks chanted in Pali to bless our pilgrimage. After the chanting, there was a remarkable outpouring of gratitude by all the bikers for the support crew, and by the support crew for the bikers. It was like somebody detonated a love bomb! Talk about blissing out! Waves of love and gratitude flowed back and forth as the entire community gave thanks for an amazing and beautiful weekend. This was a divinely orchestrated experience that truly opened the heart, that nurtured both physical and emotional well being, that empowered us all to move into the rest of our lives with wisdom and faith. In fact, all I could think about was why we don't do the opposite of a qu'ran burning, where we host an event that celebrates all of humanity, all forms of spirituality, all forms of love, all forms of kindness and compassion - sort of like a massive loving kindness diksha, and the whole world's invited. At that moment, I knew that not only was something like this possible, but it is already unfolding, already in process, and it is abundant, exalted and immeasurable!
As you can see, this event can produce a major spiritual high! It isn't any wonder why I recommend the Buddhist biking pilgrimage with all my heart. So if you want to participate next year, get yourself a bike and go to: www.dharmawheels.org.
More about sarira
More about Spirit Rock Vipassana Center
More about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
More about Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery
