NOW AND ZEN
Marcus Solomon connects
with an enlightened invert
at Upland in 1986.
Marcus Solomon (center) chills with
two of Thailand's top celebrities,
Phra Ajaan SamReuyTayano.
and Klaim, who say they
can levitate.
F
EEL the entire weight of the world push against your foot
throwing you faster forward. REALIZE that the earth spins
beneath your wheels, and you capture the essence of motion
while standing completely still. AWAKEN to the knowledge
that in order to be who you really are, effort is not necessary.
Simply BE who you are in the same way gravity can pull you home
without a push. This is not Zen; these are mere words.
Zen is nothing: the power of emptiness.
How can emptiness have any power, and why should anyone
pick up on some weird ancient mystical mind trip? Because
improved mind control will lead to more intense and satis-
fying skate experiences, and everyone can benefit from
fine tuning that on-board computer called the brain. The
mind controls the body, and the body controls the board;
it's that simple.
Zen as a discipline goes back to ancient times, and vol-
umes have been written about it, but this is intended to be
just a short and simple pointer toward the concept. I don't
claim to be a Zen master, and in fact, anyone who claims to
be one is a liar. This is not something that can be explained;
the Zen mind is a realm which can only be discovered and
experienced for yourself.
We skateboarders tend to be a rebellious sort, being that we
are attracted to the edges of what is considered "normal" and
"safe." This is the first step on the path of liberation: total
freedom. It takes a daring spirit to challenge the conven-
tional wisdom of "normal" society. Courage and patience
are required in order to take a board and ride the razor-thin
edge between ability and injury. Most people have dust in
their mind's eye which causes them to see skaters as reck-
less fools rather than high-speed gymnasts who
shape gravity like clay.
Imagine yourself to be a hurricane of power;
Zen mind is the calm center of the storm.
around which everything else rotates. Calm.
center equals perfect balance. Whenever
you fall, it is because of a lack of bal-
ance mentally and physically. If the
center is not clear and calm, then it
is tangled with confusion and/or
frustration, which leads only to
more confusion and frustra-
tion. The answer is to
"flush it all away," leaving
you with an "empty
mind" that is clear of all
distractions and barri-
ers. The hurricane never
thinks, "I intend to
become a storm now."
It becomes what it is
through the process of "effortless effort." This is
the only way to truly be yourself; simply skate in
order to be a skateboarder.
While a select few have attained the Zen.
realm, most are stuck in the same mental quick-
sand as the pitiful poseur. Too many skaters.
develop some skill and then spoil it by falling.
victim to unhealthy pride. They too start chas-
ing some stupid idea of self that is based on
how they think others are seeing them. They
become prisoners of their own ripping ability
and slaves to craving more. "Gotta get better,
gotta make this, did she see me do that? Will I
get a sponsor? I don't get enough
attention...aaaaaashit!" And the board gets
thrown in a fit of unsatisfied frustration.
Rejecting all created images of who society
(including yourself) says you should be is the ulti-
mate rebellion. Worrying about what other peo-
ple think is nothing more than a mental prison;
worrying about your own self image is an even
smaller cell. Do not mistake apathy for clarity,
because you already know what is good and bad.
The only true revolution takes place in the indi-
vidual mind. So how punk are you? I dare you to
step to the edge and drop into the abyss that is
yourself there is no bottom.
No bottom, no limits; just imagine if some
skater figured out how to levitate. Quantum
physics has shown that at the molecular
level, nothing ever touches anything else. All
those protons, neutrons, and electrons are
spinning and hovering through electrical
force fields. Therefore, you have never actu-
ally touched anything in your life, and you
are levitating as you read this. There's the
push to get you into some really high ollies,
my friend. Spinning and hovering...pushing
and rolling...falling and bleeding...this is the
natural state of the skateboarder.
Trying too hard always gets in the way of
doing. Have you ever tried to make some move,
and keep repeating the same damn mistake over
and over again? This is what happens when the
mind gets all tangled up in the web of its own.
thoughts, causing the inside to negatively affect
"you are levitating
as you read this"
the outside world of body actions. The answer is
to "flush away" all the crap that constipates the
mind. Try to "forget" whatever you were doing in
order to have a clear mindset to work with again.
Imagine from start to finish what you want to
accomplish, and instead of trying to do it, simply
blend into the reality the mind has created. This
method may or may not make you a better
skater, but it is guaranteed that your satisfaction
and level of intensity will magnify.
While the Zen mind does have its roots in
ancient Buddhist history, it really isn't some
freaky tripped-out weirdness from the mystical
land of wherever. It is simple "here and now"
perception that you have had all along but never
realized. For example, how many times have you
skated down the street with a "la-di-da" attitude
while simultaneously dodging rocks, cars, dogs,
cops, etc.? Being able to avoid injury and death
with instinctive casualness is one of the aspects
of the Zen realm....Use the Force, Luke....
All of this tempting of fate leads to the
inevitable slam, and pain has an amazing ability
to turn philosophy into bullshit. That's good
because Zen is the absence of philosophy, and
pain is a natural part of life. Skateboarding would
be boring as lint without the element of risk.
Remove the risk from skateboarding and you
have something less than skating. Remove the
pain from life, and you have something less than
living. Pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and
shame, all are the same... what does this mean?
It means that because all apparent opposites
need each other in order to exist, there's no way
to separate them. Since you cannot separate.
them, there is no point in thinking in terms of
At one with the universe,
but captured in duplicate,
is Brian Edwards backside
kickflipping a rail gap.
"good" or "bad." For example, making your trick
is good, but if you made everything all the time,
that would be bad because it would render
everything boring.
Instead of thinking in terms of dualism (two-
sided), think of everything as "stuff that just hap-
pens," and know you are a part of it all. "Forget"
all the labels, and just be who you are. Realize
that everything is connected, and you are at the
center of it all... the empty center.
Feeling enlightened yet? Maybe yes, maybe no;
enlightenment is not the point of this article any-
way. What do you feel like doing right now?
Skateboarding, perhaps? Just do what you want,
and ignore me.
All you have to do in life is breathe, eat, sleep,
excrete, and die; everything else is entirely
optional. -Marcus Solomon