Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

Carlos Castenada - from A Separate Reality

So, my cousin and her son did the Nautica Malibu Triathlon last weekend and killed it. My nephew, Blaine(15), averaged a 6:30 minute mile to podium. And he rode a mountain bike. Freakin' awesome! Props to you on having fun, keep it up. Oh, and Eric ... What's up with the man-crush on Matthew McConaughey? Oh, I get it, you were just taking those pictures for Gail. Got it. (Hope you don't mind I used one of your pics for the blog.)

And in other news - it was my birthday yesterday. As I get older, I realize the importance of living the healthy, fitness based lifestyle. My goal is not to live forever, but to make those days I am here much, much more enjoyable. As I look at more and more older people around me, I realize the importance of the health investments I am making now. These investments will pay dividends far beyond the original 'up-front' costs. Especially when the compounding interest of time starts occurring in those oh-so-important latter years. I want to see my children and, hopefully, my grandchildren have fun and be there DOING it with them. That's when all my deposits into the Bank of Longevity should extend the due date of my 'loan' - this human body. Hopefully, especially in these current times, the Bank of Longevity does not go bankrupt before it's time.

That reminds me of one of my favorite writings by Allen Ginsburg:

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

Take my love, it is not true,
So let it tempt no body new;
Take my lady, she will sigh
For my bed where’er I lie;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take my raiment, now grown cold,
To give to some poor poet old;
Take the skin that hoods this truth
If his age would wear my youth;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the thoughts that like the wind
Blow my body out of mind;
Take this heart to go with that
And pass it on from rat to rat;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the art which I bemoan
In a poem’s crazy tone;
Grind me down, though I may groan,
To the starkest stick and stone;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Focus

Your daily life - with all its opportunities, challenges and dilemmas - is a composite reflection of your recent focus of attention. Shift this focus, and you will begin to realize new dimensions of unmanifest potential. Watch and learn as this energy moves. Whatever you focus on expands.

So, be vigilant on what your focus is.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

The Lord and Master of My Universe

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

~ Lao-tzu, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism from Tao Te Ching

I always try to analyze where my focus is.

Am I trying to master myself? Or am I trying to master others?

That reminds me of another quote:

"When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Way."

~ Lao-tzu, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism from Tao Te Ching

By mastering myself, true power, I don't let others (lesser people) bring me down when they laugh at or ridicule me at for following my passions.

So, follow your visions and master yourself.

Those that matter don't mind. Those that mind, don't matter.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

~ Carlos Castaneda, 20th century mystic and Toltec warrior from Journey to Ixtlan

One of my mantras in my first Ironman was "running hurts and walking hurts, so why not run?"

Every moment we choose to be miserable or we choose to be strong. Let your mantra help you.

Time to become harder, better, faster, stronger.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

More Control: A Mantra, Part 2

“The word mantra comes from two Sanskrit words man, (“to think”) and tra (“tool’). So the literal translation is “a tool of thought.” And that’s how mantras are used in Buddhist and Hindu practices, as tools that clear your mind of distractions. Because when you focus on repeating that mantra over and over again, soon the noise will die down and all you will hear is your inner voice.”

~ Russell Simmons, hip-hop mogul from Do You!

Mantra = “Tool of thought.”

So ... what mantra are you knowingly, or unknowingly, chanting in your head?

The cool thing is, when you finally hear your inner voice, you realize all the other voices aren't yours. Hmmmm ...

By the way, one of my mantras, for those that asked, is "Now is the only thing that's real, so be here now!" - The past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist. It's always NOW. NOW is where it's at. But, the past got you to this moment and your future is decided in this moment, so NOW is where the change is made. The mantra is a tool of the NOW. While training for and racing an Ironman, that mantra, for me, is everything.

I Can part with that.

Control: A Mantra for Change

"We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk."

~ Carlos Castaneda, 20th century mystic and Toltec warrior from A Separate Reality

We're always talking to ourselves. Mind chatter ...

Just as Hinduism and Buddhism encourage us to control our mind, Shamanic wisdom teaches us to control our "internal dialogue."

Training for the Ironman has taught me to have a mantra that I can recite over and over to dispel my negative thoughts when I am unmotivated and don't want to train. Luckily, that mantra also works outside of training. At any moment it brings me back to my source, my center, allowing me to regroup and reevaluate my direction.

Mind control is the most important skill to reach a goal. A mantra is a good tool to begin controlling the mind.

The question is: What is your mantra?

Is it your mantra or a mantra inseminated by the media ... a message implanted by the television or radio?

- OR -

Is it a mantra given to you by your parents, teachers or friends?
Once I found my true self mantra, that made all the difference.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

A Bodhisattva mask for the dance

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."

~ Viktor Frankl from Man's Search for Meaning

Wow.

Too often, we want to live in the “tensionless” state we can find watching television or, for some of us , in the state of meditation in meditation—transcending the throes of our daily challenges.

But that’s not the point of life.

The point?

To find a goal worthy of us and to spend our lives “striving and struggling” to fulfill the potentiality within us.

As we truly engage in this passionate pursuit of our potential, an effortless effort comes in that beats any idea of benign “tensionless-ness.”

Our potential is calling.

Let’s answer.

__________________

Interesting Thoughts ...

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/