Mara

The mind itself is the realm of Mara.

Mara is the demon in Buddhism that tempted the Buddha with material things of this world to try and keep him from achieving enlightenment.  Mara personifies unwholesomeness. Death of the spirit.

In today’s cycling world there is a lot out there.  From 11 gears, lighter bits & parts, carbon this and that, suspension out the wazoo; and what does all of these do? It takes away from the spirit of the ride. By that I mean things are getting and have gotten a little too easy. They are presented to you on a nice silver platter, and you just enjoy.  Think you’re taking the ‘hard way’ and building up a bike from scratch? What groupo do you want? Slap it on there…done. Enjoy.

Have you recently taken a look at the mtn bike categories? So many different genres that I could make your head spin. Do you remember a time when you just picked up something with knobby tires, pointed down (or up) a hill and went? I do. We were happy back then to just be on a bike in the woods. Not worrying about this angle, or how many inches of travel we had. We just went.

Do I have enough gears? Mara. Do I have the right suspension set up? Mara. What about this wheel size thing? Mara. I would have cleared that spot better if I would have had…Mara!

Doubt. Temptation. Mara. You begin to doubt yourself and your own ability to ride a bike with any kind of confidence. Sorry your dad/mom isn’t holding your saddle anymore.

As we are able to reject Mara, we are able to reject the temptation and doubt that comes along with. 

If we ride a single speed we have no doubt. No temptation. All we have is one fucking gear. As we trudge up a hill, doubt may creep in about gear choice on that day (if we have the insanity to have such an option); but often those thoughts are quickly erased, and we have to focus on the task at hand…get up the fucking hill.

We find a gearing that is a well-rounded gearing for the riding that we will be doing most of the time, and the other time…well; we just deal with it. There is a piece called the “Tao of Single Speed”, and I will refer to it often in these pieces; in it, it states, “Accept difficulty willingly.”  This is a struggle with the single speed. It is often difficult; but we didn’t pick the single speed because it was easy, and no one said that riding your bike up and down a mountain was going to be easy.  But it sure is fun. This will teach us acceptance. Acceptance of the gearing. Acceptance of the terrain. Acceptance of the ride…itself.

Let go of the troubling mind & accept what is; not what could be.

Amitabha…