"The thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions.” -Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A year ago a picked up the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Persig. Wrapped up in the inspiration of Persig’s words, I decided to rent a motorcycle and travel through parts of Uganda. Among many other things, I quickly learned that I did not know how to fix a motorcycle and spent a number of hours with mechanics on the sides of the earthy red roads. What I did learn, however, is a keen understanding of this connection of one’s surroundings to the heart. A year later, I am strapped here to my bicycle, Nevada sun gently tucking my hair behind my ears, mountains crinkling in the distance.
If you lean in closely enough, you can feel the miracles kiss each hair on your crisping forearms.The almond butter oatmeal of this morning came from the earth to be nourished by bold rain and picked by gracious hands. This act of love enters into our bodies to turn chemical energy into mechanical energy shooting down to the pulse of the pedal. Petal turns to chain, turns to wheel, turns to road, turns to kinetic energy, turns to desert shrubbery conversations whispering inaudible secrets by passing ears.
In many ways, every mile of the sixty-two miles today is a slow and beautiful meditation. I reach a point where my body harmonizes to the measures of the bike and my rhythm flows through the carbon fiber core into the earth. If I draw enough circles, it turns into a line. Persig says, "The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things.” When bike dissolves into person, cycling becomes an extension of the self moving in and through the world, rather than simply a motion of exercise.
This is the real reason why I am on this trip— to cultivate this connection between body and mind that subsequently pours out in how I live in the world. When people asked Gandhi what they could do to help the liberation of India, he simply replied, “Give me two hours a day spinning thread, 160 rounds, 4 feet long. That’s all.” Gandhi, through the spinning wheel, understood the intimate connection between the hand and the heart. To cultivate satyagraha— truth force— means to express your heart outwardly in your actions, and for your actions to inform the truth that lies in your heart.
-Vivian