Riding the Iron Rail

My friend Sherry recently blogged. In there, the quote:

"The quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention" — Cheri Huber

Reminded me: in motorcycle riding we go where we look. It's called "Riding the Iron Rail."

If I look at the car's bumper ahead of me - then that is where I'm going. Even if it means riding right into the bumper. Or worse.

We train ourselves to break the gaze, look away and avoid the collision.

Make a new choice instead of riding the iron rail and smashing into the car.

In grappling with the mind-ego, it seems we begin to give this anthropomorphic qualities:

• My mind is after me


• I have to kill my ego


• Satan is after me (?)


• etc...

And now it's a real thing and begins to take on a life of its own and a momentum of its own and all of a sudden we've gone from simply breaking a habit to a massive war. Something doable to something impossible. The technical term for this is: you're screwed.

I look at this aspect of mind as a conditioned reaction. A set of (now) hardwired reactions, old same tapes and old same tricks (David S writes on this).

This functioning of the mind is conditioned. It's a learned reaction, a habit.

Until we learn to ignore our egoic, conditioned mind, to create new pathways, to recognize its old tricks...we're stuck riding the iron rail to our doom.

It's so simple to unlearn.

Simply break the gaze.