Are You Training For Something?

Sometimes a question comes at you and gobsmacks you right between the eyes, causing a kind of intellectual brain-freeze. A very good friend of mine told me a story once about a bird that he was caring for. (As background, the friend and his wife at the time would often foster exotic birds, which were for one reason or another otherwise homeless.) My friend told me that, as a person approached, the bird would often ask: “What are you?” - several times in a kind of bird-accusatory voice. How do you answer that, I mean what are you, really? It’s like the bird thrusts you into some deep existential moment. After posing the question several times, the bird would provide his own answer and say in a softer voice: “I’m a baby.” I think sometimes that might be the answer for us all. At least one Zen koan solved.

So it was for me one morning. I had recently developed a practice of running to my Sunday morning yoga class. The trip to class takes five minutes by car and ten minutes running so it just seemed like a good way to get a bit of running in, which is an area where I know I need improvement. Of course, my yoga instructor and classmates noticed that I would arrive on foot, panting, and sporting a fanny pack instead of my purse. One of my classmates inquired about my decision to run to class and said: “Are you training for something?” I took the question as I believe she intended it, meaning was I training for some running event, and so I answered “no” since I am not training for a running event. But, for me, the question also struck deeper than that, like the bird asking: “What are you?” So, “Am I training for something?” No, yes, and I’m not sure. All I know is that “I am a baby.”