THE ZEN OF DRIVING

Today I miss driving.  Not driving to the local store or to the beach.  I miss driving the distance.  I miss driving for 6 hours and having it feel like 2.  I miss not even noticing that you have been driving for a long time until you hit 10 hours.  I miss the road.  I miss the adventure.  I miss not knowing what lies around the bend, what blessing will fall in your lap, what obstacle you will have to overcome. 

Here are the official numbers:  My cousin Sean and I were on the road for almost exactly four months together.  When I left, the miles on my VW Passat read 22,219.  I came home and they were at 39,952.  That is 17,733 miles for those of you who don’t like doing math.  Sean and I were probably together in that little car for 16,233 of them.  We aren’t talking much these days. 

In that time I had five oil changes, two tire rotations and had to get my rear brake pads replaced. (And I’m pretty sure I have to get them replaced again). My engine light started blinking yesterday.  I won’t even tell you what I spent in gas.  I couldn’t have picked a worse time for a nation-wide road trip if I had tried, that’s for sure. 

But I will tell you this: it was worth every penny.  Now that I have stayed in one spot for almost a month, my brain has started settling like a fine pint of Guinness. Everything that I’ve seen and done is really starting to sink in.  But it all seems so surreal.

It’s that feeling of going somewhere and then coming home and looking at the pictures— but not feeling like you were the person who was even there; someone else took the pictures; the trip never happened at all and it was just an extended, adventurous dream.  Like Wendy must have felt when she returned from Neverland, or Alice upon returning from Wonderland, I feel like the exact same person, only slightly more disoriented.

As a result of my extended tour of America, blasting music with the windows down at 80 mph has become my comfort zone.  It’s a strange dichotomy to experience —being so grounded in the moment, yet at the same time watching your brain checkout on a trip of its own.  Sean and I often discussed whether or not we would be damaged goods when we returned from our adventure because of our brains adapting to so much driving.  I know that I will never be the same.

Your brain processes 2 billion bits of information per second.  That’s at rest. Now imagine how much information you take in and how quickly you process that information while you drive.   My mind longs to just slip into that peaceful meditative reverie as the scenes, billboards, cars, cows, trees and mountains fly by.  You know how it is…. after driving for a while you forget that you are even driving; two hours will go by and you won’t remember driving for one minute of it.  Not only is the car on cruise control—your brain is too.  Funnily, it is very close to what you strive for in a traditional Buddhist meditation practice: the stilling of the body and of the mind, observing your thoughts as they advance and then just as quickly letting them go.  The only difference—you are moving all the while.

Maybe it’s a new path to enlightenment.  Maybe if everyone gets in their cars (hybrids of course) and starts driving around the country, they will drive their way to nirvana.  But maybe it’s more than that.  Maybe that’s the Zen trick--to remember that all of life is really like a road trip.  It is merely the routine that blinds us to the mystery.  And despite whether we are traveling or not, there is always a miracle to behold, an opportunity to snatch, an obstacle to overcome, a good piece of apple pie to be had and a lost soul to be found—because it is life that is moving, not us.  The challenge is to constantly be mindful of all that passes us by in each moment, even while we are still.