Blank Mind

I haven’t ridden my bike (or any bike) in a while, which is why I haven’t written any of these pieces in a bit. My hiatus from riding is partially because I was living in Puerto Rico for two months and didn’t bring my bike, but also because there’s been a gas leak that I can’t figure out, and I’ve neglected taking it in to get it looked at. 

One of the things I have been doing a lot of recently, however, is writing. In particular, I’ve been writing a novel. The concept is something I won’t get into here, though I may publish chapters of it on this website at a later date, but it’s been a long-running project for me. This is something I’ve been developing (albeit intermittently) for around three years now. 

In working on this, one of the things I’ve found most difficult is getting in the right headspace to write. Once I’m settled down, actually writing, the stuff comes out fairly easily, but I work 9-5 (sometimes more like 7-6), and even though writing of some shape or form is what I’m doing all the time, it’s hard to take time during the day to reset your brain. It’s not easy to switch from writing marketing copy, emails, news, sponsored articles, or blogs to writing creatively, crafting a story from scratch.

This difficulty got me thinking about one of my favorite things about riding, “the blank mind.” People talk about wind therapy a lot, but you don’t hear about “the blank mind” as much. Maybe that’s because I made the term up. I don’t know.

Anyways, the blank mind is the mind I feel I have when riding. I love it so much because it’s an experience similar to mindfulness meditation, without any discipline required. In traditional mindfulness meditation, which I’ve tried to practice off and on for years, you have to block out all your other thoughts. You have to clear your mind yourself, and often it's pretty difficult (at least for me), when you’re just sitting cross legged on the grass somewhere. My mind is constantly thinking about work or friends or family or what I’m going to make for dinner. 

The term “mindfulness,” of course, is somewhat counter-intuitive, but it means being mindful of the present, and nothing else. So thoughts about anything outside the present moment, anything outside of your breath, the way your body feels right now, anything besides that stuff, that’s all what you’re trying to avoid. So I like to think of it as “blank mind.” No thoughts outside the absolute, present moment. “The moment of now,” as Mike Libecki, who I’ve been lucky enough to interview a few times, might put it.

When you're on a motorcycle, this mindfulness is involuntary. You’re completely aware of what you’re doing, but there’s no space for thoughts about anything else. The brakes, the gears, the other drivers around you, the road, it all sits front and center. When you’re on two wheels, thinking about anything other than the present moment isn’t only irrelevant, it’s somewhat distracting and possibly dangerous.

It’s like a cleansing, a refresh, and it’s particularly beneficial for my writing. It takes me back to the core of what I’m thinking and feeling about my story, and I avoid the contrivances that sometimes pour out when I try to switch to writing my novel after a day of writing marketing copy.

This mindfulness, on the back of a bike, it’s a similar sensation to the one I get whenever I’m in the mountains, or anywhere for that matter, and something happens that puts me on edge, when I slip and arrest the fall, or there’s rockfall nearby, for example. This run up to the edge, then a slow recline back from said edge. It’s cathartic. The world seems clearer, sharper, more in focus. 

Unlike in the mountains, however, on a motorcycle, this feeling is sustained. I imagine it’s something similar, granted on much a smaller scale, to free solo climbing, where there is no rope or safety measure in place. This feeling of being in complete control, the realization that complete focus is necessary to prevent mishap, it has its benefits.

I’ve done hundreds of meditation sessions by myself, listened to dozens of meditation tapes and podcasts, visited Buddhist monasteries and temples, even. But in my lifetime, I haven’t found any better way to generate mindfulness than simply being on the back of a motorcycle.