{"id":2944,"date":"2008-07-28T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T16:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2944"},"modified":"2009-07-12T09:42:10","modified_gmt":"2009-07-12T14:42:10","slug":"leaving-the-matrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2944","title":{"rendered":"Leaving The Matrix"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to keep an open mind to other cultures, viewpoints and philosophies and recently listened to Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n’s 3-CD set “Getting Unstuck<\/a>” <\/em>during my recent road trip to Milwaukee. It was recommended by a favorite client of mine.<\/p>\n

Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n<\/a> (formerly known as Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) is an ordained Buddhist nun in the Tibetan vajrayana tradition, and a teacher in the lineage of Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa. The goal of her work is the ability to apply Buddhist teachings in everyday life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hate to boil the whole of Buddhism down to one principle, but my experience is limited to this CD set and the gist of the application of Buddhist teachings in everyday life<\/em> is quite similar to a quote I cited in my last post at Roosh Five<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad, but rather regret over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is to say, my takeaway was learning to be “present” as Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n puts it, and I thought\u00a0the audio CD and another recent experience\u00a0was relevant to the discussion in my previous “Matrix” post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, watch as I turn this whole concept into a justification for the\u00a0rental of a motorhead boy toy.<\/p>\n

Friday, two colleagues and I rented Harleys (mine was actually a 1300cc Yamaha V-Star if you must know) and rode from downtown Minneapolis, headed\u00a0East,\u00a0and toured both sides of the Minnesota\/Wisconsin border, Wisconsin side down to Pepin and back up the Minnesota side. Our tour terminated in\u00a0Stillwater where we joined the festivities of Lumberjack Days<\/a>, already in progress.<\/p>\n

We put on a few hundred miles, stopping for whatever reason we saw fit;\u00a0a beer, a view, or a funnel cloud (we think) over lake Pepin in Lake City.<\/p>\n

The essence\u00a0of riding a motorcycle is the freedom you feel. The dis<\/strong><\/em>connection. It’s not just the warm wind buffeting your face, the soundtrack of the\u00a0big-cans and pipes, the copious torque available at the flick of a wrist\u00a0or the 360-degree unimpeded view. It’s the fact that done right,\u00a0a bike ride\u00a0is on no one’s schedule but your own. One caveat: in the interest of self-preservation, your constant attention to the now is required. Hence, motorcycling requires<\/em> you to be “present”; or else.<\/p>\n

We had no radios, no CB’s, and our Swiss Army Personal Digital Assistants, with their chirps, buzzes and warbles fell on deaf ears buried in the depths of our saddle bags.<\/p>\n

I observed one\u00a0of my colleagues light a cigarette at a red light and smoke it behind the windscreen at highway speeds, but I have never once seen anyone talking on a cell phone or reading a newspaper or texting on a motorcycle. It’s against the laws of nature, I’m sure of it.<\/p>\n

As such, we would go as much as a couple hours at a time without connection to the modern world, the fact that we were riding fuel-injected\u00a0hogs with trip computers and electronic ignition,\u00a0notwithstanding. Completely incommunicado.<\/p>\n

In fact, we rarely even spoke to each other. It was us, the road, the sun and the aural interplay of the throaty rumble and crack of our pipes\u00a0as we rode in staggered formation through the winding two-lane highways along the river and it’s bluffs\u00a0that make Western Wisconsin and Southeastern Minnesota some of the most popular and scenic territory for bikers.<\/p>\n

Calls went unanswered. Text messages failed to generate urgency. Emails stacked themselves neatly. Severe weather warnings went unheard. The stock market did what it does; just without us on this day.<\/p>\n

And it was good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to keep an open mind to other cultures, viewpoints and philosophies and recently listened to Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n’s 3-CD set “Getting Unstuck” during my recent road trip to Milwaukee. It was recommended by a favorite client of mine. Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n (formerly known as Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) is an ordained Buddhist nun in the Tibetan vajrayana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-universe-and-everything","category-the-matrix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}