Climbing the Bats

This is not about the crazy climbing posture called the “Bat-Hang”, where an experienced rock climber of supernatural power is fearlessly hanging head down from a rock secured solely by hooking the toes on a tiny hold. Some things in life I should never try, probably because I was not designed for it, or simply because that ship has sailed long ago: too old, too big, too little (time), too late. Ballet dancing for example, cosplay, romantic affairs, participating the “Rubik’s Cube World Championship”  … or sports climbing.

So I decided for sports climbing. A mission impossible has always been my thing. Not because I am particularly good at doing cutting edge things and pushing the frontier of what human beings are able to perform at their best. Quite the opposite: I learn most by trying hard a thing at which I am really really bad at. Sports climbing for example.

Consequently, the other day I found myself hanging at the wall. Not head down high above the ground like a bat, but half way up at the end of my wits on what my friendly belayer (the guy holding the other end of a rope my life is hanging from in case I fall) described as a “kiddy’s’ beginner route”. My arm was loosing grip from a bat-shaped hold of the size of a small stair. Falling into the rope I caught a glimpse of my friend speeding up a 7+ route made up of little white plastic dots next to my bat-sparkled vertical playground.

A couple of weeks ago we both started climbing together, yet she is half as old, half has heavy and twice as fit as I am. And three times as bold. Now we are already years apart in climbing performance.

Sometimes people join our Dojo or Zen Sesshin and just feel totally wrong, intimated by what is probably perceived as the solemn atmosphere of a Japanese Temple. A big master-like looking bald-headed old man in Japanese style clothes with a golden shiny Rakuso around his neck, accompanied by his radiant young assistant dressed in a simple indigo-dyed Samu-e taking care of everything in light speed. Oh, if such first time visitor could just see us climbing next to each other at the wall, me clinging to the bats while her sending a 7+ !

Nobody is wrong. All that counts is the effort, not the outcome, not competing to others. Others are stronger, smarter, richer, younger, more beautiful. Always. The good news (the message of Zen Buddhism) is: there is no fixed self. There is nothing imprinted on us that determines us forever. Change happens anyway, inevitably, so get ahead of it and change instead of experiencing change just happen.

I never mind you hardly make it into our Dojo or Sesshin, if absolutely you cannot sit on the floor and it takes half a year before you can remember how to brush the first three simple two-stroke Japanese characters. As long as you try as hard as if your life depends on it. Give your best and never give up, that’s all. That’s how I was climbing the bats the other day until I discovered the traces of blood on the wall and grips came from my fingers and knees. And never compare yourself to others, just compare yourself to the person you were yesterday, last month, last year.

Outside the Kyudo (Japanese archery) Dojo of Engakuji temple in Kitakamakura the late Zen- and archery master Suhara Koun, a friend of my former teacher, put a post:

Words of the athlete Abebe: The other 69 runners were not my competitors, I myself was my competitor. Therefore, I won against myself.

Abebe Bikila won the marathon gold medal of the 1960 Olympics in Rome running bare-feet. During the 1964 Tokyo Olympics he repeated his success (in shoes), and later in an interview spoke the above quoted words.

I imagine Abebe Kilala was a wise man. He probably understood the challenge is not about fighting others, but giving your best trying to overcome your yesterday’s self.

So never mind if you believe you are not sufficient to start practicing Zen and Zen calligraphy with us! Just imagine myself hanging three meters high above the ground on a bat-shaped grip trying very hard to climb a little better than last week, while my young friend boldly performs as a lead climber on scary rocks somewhere in the wild. Just give your very best and compete against yourself, that’s all what counts.