It is 147 days until I run a 50 mile race. I have entered NOT a period of training. I have entered a period of transformation. My body could probably already complete the mileage. I just ran a 31 mile race in 5:24. By adding the walking and eating, my body would be ok. My body does what is requested of it in my thoughts. It is my mind that needs transformation.
You will see that I mix spirituality into my running. I do this because I mix spirituality into everything I do. Why? It is my goal to learn that I am only spirit, in this lifetime. In my spirituality, I am a reformed Tenzin Palmo. Tenzin Palmo is the highest ranking Buddhist nun. She spent 12 years alone in a Himalayan cave. She said in her book that the goal of her life is to achieve enlightenment as a woman. What? Well, the male roshis do not think it is possible for a woman to be enlightened. Of course that is ridiculous; but that is what they believe. Tenzin Palmo intends to prove them wrong. My life goal, to know I am a spirit, in this life, reflects Tenzin Palmo who is something of an inspiration for me.
In the realm of running, yet mixed with meditation and enlightenment, is the inspiration of Suprabha Beckjord. She has for 11 years completed the 3,100 mile Self Transcendence race. This she does by going about 54 miles a day until the distance is completed. Um…impossible!
147 days is not even 6 months. I want to develop a kind of sobriety, an athletic sobriety: ultra-sobriety. I don’t want my ego to be training or dieting. This ultra-sobriety needs to be carefully crafted, hand carved out of love and quiet discipline. The discipline is to sit quietly in a cocoon of holiness and innocence while the ego is transformed into spirit. Yes, I jog and walk and eat and sleep; but all the while consciously working the steps to remain ultra-sober. The steps of ultra-sobriety, the designing and building of the cocoon and the sitting within it, are an ontological tool used with the 50 mile race as the day of re-birth. Ultra- sobriety is my engineering project. October 10 is the day of its unveiling, the day of ripping open the cocoon, the crossing of the bridge, the turning of the page, the day of death and resurrection.
The 147 days are a preparation for the day of dying; by giving up my ego possessions and my ideas of what training and racing should be. I actually DO NOT know who I am. I know NOT how to eat or train or be a spirit. I know NOT how to be ultra-sober. Life, my ego concept of self as I know it, is unmanageable by me. Hence, ultra-sobriety is a gift I hope to receive each day.
God grant me the serenity to NOT try too hard today, to accept Your Love and listen quietly to Your Guidance, and to allow my insanity to be healed by You.
I have planned a few days next week to detox from my own thinking. I need to turn my will and my life over to God’s plan for me, God’s Teacher and The Teacher’s peace. Ultra-sobriety should be a time of peace, more peaceful than I’ve ever been. My insanity is unworthiness and unbelief. It is my own choice of unworthiness which denies ultra-sobriety and causes insane racing after goals. Marathon racing is plagued by demons. The headless horsemen are called AG (age group award) and PB (personal best) and BQ (Boston qualification); the messengers of ego desire. In a marathon I experience the insanity of fear, chasing the demons of ego satisfaction, in frenetic desperation to catch the ego gratification of AG and PB and BQ.
To live ultra-sober and run the race of self transcendence, to know I am spirit, is to enter a flow of existence and merely be. One jogs and walks and eats and feels pain and experiences the delusions; but the spirit is merely existing and maintaining peace; quietly slipping across the bridge.
This morning I snuck in a wonderful 77 minutes of jogging between thunderstorms. Starting today, I am not counting miles but minutes.
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