There’s a point during a long run–somewhere around six miles–when my mind clears. The angry din of competing stresses silences, the red haze of self-righteous indignation dissipates, and my shoulders drop in surrender to the tranquility of the moment. My vision widens beyond the terrain immediately beneath my feet. Suddenly, I’m surrounded by peace and beauty. Suddenly, all that seems inconsequential compared to all this.

People asked what I was doing for my birthday. If I was feeling flippant, I told them laundry, which is what I was doing Sunday evening. But more completely, I spent a weekend doing everything I love. On Friday my best friend Sheila went the extra mile to get us a table at PF Changs and bought me Cosmopolitans and lettuce wraps. On Saturday Miriam took me to my favorite Mexican restaurant after a lovely day of climbing moderates at the Gunks. And on Sunday I cleared my head of whatever else ailed me with a fourteen mile run in the rain, just me and a lot of peace and quiet. Interspersed were other tidings of love from other people who love me.

I’ve been trying to be a good Buddhist for a few years now and sometime I feel like I’m no farther down the path to enlightenment than when I started, but there are times–when I climb, when I run–when I am wholly in the moment, times when I have “quiet mind.” During the days when fear was overwhelming my climbing experience, I started using a mantra to quell negative self-talk: “I’m strong, I’m confident, and my gear is good.” I think a mantra gives you quiet mind, not because you believe what you’re saying necessarily, but because you lull yourself to peace through repetition.

Lately I’ve learned a new mantra for those times when self-pitying, wishing thoughts are flooding my brain and I can’t work them out by climbing or running. The new mantra is: “I’m lucky, I’m loved, and my life will go on.” Although a mantra works whether you believe in it or not, mine was easy to believe for my birthday.

All led by me:
Betty P1 & P2, 5.3
Classic & P2 of Jackie, 5.7
City Lights P1, 5.7