Love is Kind

So I've been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and laying off the hard core running the past couple of months. Jiu jitsu isn't like running -- it's not the quiet activity you do as a meditation; it's the closest physically you ever get to a person you aren't sleeping with. It's hard core wrestling, but it has a flow and is strategic. Some people, including my teacher, call it kinetic chess.

Something that happened spontaneously and has become a mental pattern when I'm training is that a familiar passage from the New Testament used in wedding ceremonies keeps coming into my head:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

While my brain has this mantra on repeat (usually just the first line), I'm engaged in trying to figure out how to survive and escape getting choked, or simply throw a big guy off of me who's bearing down with all his weight. Yeah, it's weird and a bit ironic, but the rhythm of the lines are meditative. They help me slow down and think about what I'm doing. I could probably achieve the same effect from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," but that's not the one my brain decided on.

I should say that the people I train with at the gym have been incredibly patient, honorable and kind to me as a newbie. When we train together, regardless of belt ranking, we lose our egos and treat each other with respect. We have an informal 'no anger' policy, use a lot of humor, and work as selflessly as possible. All relationships could benefit from these virtues.

There is something poetic about Jiu-Jitsu as a representation of the wrestling we go through in life, with our selves, and in love. I hope that I'm becoming a better grappler overall. At least I'm working on it.

The months I've taken off of running have been restorative, and it's nice to find a new way to connect body and mind. Maybe I'm almost ready to start running again...

That which is hard to see, entering the hidden, set in the secret place, dwelling in the primal depth, by meditating on this as God through the uniting of the soul, the wise person leaves joy and sorrow behind. -Katha Upanishad

76. Bringers. Sandburg, Carl. 1918. Cornhuskers

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
-John Ruskin



Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

We inhale luminous, cool air, and our respiration is a prayer, as is the beating of our heart.
-F. Schuon

I have been woven among the meshes of long ropes
and fine filaments: older than the rocks and
fresh as the dawn of this morning today are
the everliving roots who begot me,
who poured me as one more seeker
one more swimmer in the gold and gray procession...

-Carl Sandburg

Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done, is done.

Macbeth Act 3, scene 2

Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
-Wislawa Szymborska, from "Under One Small Star"

Stretching Toward the Roof

The sun
Won a beauty contest and became a jewel
Set upon God's right hand.

The earth agreed to be a toe ring on the
Beloved's foot
And has never regretted its decision.

The mountains got tired
Of sitting amongst a sleeping audience

And are now stretching their arms
Toward the Roof.
-Hafiz

Lord of the Worlds --
The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful,
...
Guide us to the straight path.
-al Qur'an 1:2-3, 1:6

Moment after moment, everyone comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
-Shunryu Suzuki

Opted for a shorter, more strenuous run today and brought my dog with me. Winter rain's not so bad!

Supposed to be a high of 41 tomorrow with 90% chance of rain. But tomorrow is my long run day...the only one I get all week. Gonna need some extra spirit to get started...

Running in the Rain - NYTimes.com

I love this: You can You can You can.

Poetry Daily: Advice in the Form of Confusions, by Margot Schilpp

The Secret Life of Chaos -- BBC 4 Documentary - Full-length!

O Love

O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,
Be all – worlds dissolve into your
stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter
than cold stares –
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.
-Rumi

Space reaches from us and construes the world: to know a tree, in its true element, throw inner space around it, from that pure abundance in you. Surround it with restraint. It has no limits. Not till it is held in your renouncing is it truly there. 
--Rainer Maria Rilke

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
--Carl Sagan

St. Luke the Righteous's Buddha Nature

Tomorrow commemorates the feast day of St. Luke the Righteous of Greece, a dreamer, a giver, and a vegan mystic who tried desperately to live out his life in pure ascetic solitude but kept failing at it. People loved him too much to let him alone. After trying for years to flee into seclusion, he finally opened a hermitage in the village of Steiri at the foot of Mt. Helicon and lived out his days healing people. Like the Buddha, he found a true path.

Wake, butterfly--
We've miles to go together.

-Basho, Zen poet

Inch Time Foot Gem

Not twice this day.

Inch time foot gem.

-Zen koan

This day won't come again.

An inch of time is worth a foot of jade.

Moving Forward

I'm starting to think that I might ultimately be more suited to running ultras than marathons or half-marathons, although I have a lot more work to do to build the stamina to run the latter two. I like the relentless, slow run. There's a Buddha-nature to that kind of running that requires only that you smash your connection to a timer and keep pressing forward. When I do this, I feel like I'm more of everything else than just a runner focused on time.

In his article, "The Long Training Run," Gary Dudney talks about how ultra training is not for the anal-retentive who care about pacing:

Time spent on your feet, not miles covered, is what is important, at least, if your goal is to just finish your first ultra. Let the distance covered and your pace work themselves out.

Right now, I'm most comfortable doing weekend runs of 90 minutes-2-hours but don't like to plan how long I'm going to run. For me, running this way is exactly a matter of pressing relentlessly forward, and I'm reluctant to want to get anal about it. There's a minimalistic elegance in doing this, I realize -- and perhaps that's why I do it -- but I'm hoping also that I'm doing it for a more spiritual reason.

I know that Buddha-nature is within and without, but it's so hard to find.

From Rilke:

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
That I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.

Liberation

It is the prayer of my innermost being to realize my supreme identity in the liberated play of consciousness, the Vast Expanse. Now is the moment, Here is the place of Liberation.

-Alex Grey

Workin It

Trying on jeans @ A&F got a lot more fun after I decided it was time to be the star of my own poster, except that I decided to wear clothes, unlike the people in the actual posters.

CAPTION: Feeling good in my body and laughing at myself to start 2012.
TAKE THAT, corn-syrup industrial complex!