Yesterday I drove from Evanston to Washington, DC to pick up my daughter from college for the summer.
I've come to cherish a full day on the road every now and then. It provides a contained environment, just the car and I, in which to do whatever non-zendo-related mental clearing I need to do. Sometimes I've made the whole 12 hour trip in silence. Yesterday, I cranked up the major-chord-sing-along-driving-drum-beat-feel-good-to-be-alive music wherever I found it on the radio (not that it was always easy; that one strech in PA after Pittsburgh yields nothing but Christian and country programming for a 60 mile stretch, but even Bedford, PA has a decent rock station after that).
I was so into it, I got a speeding ticket as my jamming to the music translated into overly heavy metal on the pedal. I didn't even care. After getting a ticket on this very trip in August 2010, I actually inflated the "Fetch Kid" and "Drop Kid" lines in my personal budget in anticipation of further tickets (who knows which jurisdiction is going to have a speed trap set up just when I'm passing through?). From where I sit, I'm not even out the money.
My Dharma brother loaded me up with 3 CDs of Thanissaro Bhikkhu's talks for the trip. "It's a long one," he said, "You'll need them." I listened to two of the talks on one of the CDs in the Pittsburgh-Bedford radio desert. There will be time enough for that. For now, I'm bowing in homage to the bodhisattvas Journey, Smash Mouth, Queen, the Fray, the Police, Green Day and all their ilk for their particular unfolding of the Dharma. Theirs, too, is medicinal salve for the hurts of the world.
I've come to cherish a full day on the road every now and then. It provides a contained environment, just the car and I, in which to do whatever non-zendo-related mental clearing I need to do. Sometimes I've made the whole 12 hour trip in silence. Yesterday, I cranked up the major-chord-sing-along-driving-drum-beat-feel-good-to-be-alive music wherever I found it on the radio (not that it was always easy; that one strech in PA after Pittsburgh yields nothing but Christian and country programming for a 60 mile stretch, but even Bedford, PA has a decent rock station after that).
I was so into it, I got a speeding ticket as my jamming to the music translated into overly heavy metal on the pedal. I didn't even care. After getting a ticket on this very trip in August 2010, I actually inflated the "Fetch Kid" and "Drop Kid" lines in my personal budget in anticipation of further tickets (who knows which jurisdiction is going to have a speed trap set up just when I'm passing through?). From where I sit, I'm not even out the money.
My Dharma brother loaded me up with 3 CDs of Thanissaro Bhikkhu's talks for the trip. "It's a long one," he said, "You'll need them." I listened to two of the talks on one of the CDs in the Pittsburgh-Bedford radio desert. There will be time enough for that. For now, I'm bowing in homage to the bodhisattvas Journey, Smash Mouth, Queen, the Fray, the Police, Green Day and all their ilk for their particular unfolding of the Dharma. Theirs, too, is medicinal salve for the hurts of the world.
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