Chris Sharma Quotes – Zen Thoughts

MIDDLE PATH IN LIFE
It’s ideal to walk the middle line in life. It’s for sure the way of peace. I’m trying every day to find that way. I get lost on the path that from afar seems so simple. Sometimes I’m too lazy and sometimes I hurry so much. I’d like to be right between those extremes.

SO FOCUSED
I don’t think I’ve been able to be focus the way that I’ve been when I’m climbing. It totally channels my energy in such a way that I completely lose myself. And that is such a good feeling.

TOTALLY ANIMALISTIC
When you do hard routes, you have to try hard. They’re not easy routes. You have to give everything you have. You have to get totally animalistic. When you’re super pumped, I have to yell to bear down. […]  It’s like martial arts. When Bruce lee threw a punch, he had to mean it.  Haahhh! Like that. When you’re doing a hard move, there is this excess energy you have to let out. Air explodes out of you. 

ESCAPE
You’re a climber and you don’t know anything else. And sometimes you want to escape that. You don’t want to be stuck as just that. Especially when people think they know you and you have to deal with recognition.

EGO THING
I see how pursuing climbing can be very selfish and totally blow the ego up. It’s so hard to keep a free-and-humble, open-and-fresh approach without taking on an attitude of self-importance. I see how I can become obsessed with accomplishments, numbers, image, and the whole bag of worms. Attachments to these things can bring much greed, jealousy, anger, and blindness to the needs and feelings of others.

MY REAL SELF
I would like to be myself in life – my real self. My ego, though, is powerful and not necessarily working in my best interest all the time. Even when climbing I can’t escape the clutches of my ego. The reason why I started climbing was because I could be free from myself.

MOTIVATION
I go through phases where I’m more motivated than other times. That’s just natural. I don’t think I could be motivated all the time - it’s just part of the lifestyle. I’ve been doing it for so long that I’m pretty accustomed to it. It’s hard sometimes, but it’s what I know.

TRAVELING
Just being in a new place. Meeting new people from foreign places. Speaking new languages. Going on adventures and being spontaneous. You never know what’s going to happen. You meet someone and you end staying at their house. And climbing in exotic places. Exploring the world.

THE BEST DOESN’T MEAN THE HAPPIEST
The strongest climbers aren’t always the happiest or nicest to be around; neither are some of them coming from the purest motivation. Climbing another V17 is not going to save the world! This activity of “rock climbing” is merely one of many ways to exist, pass the time, and evolve and grow from one moment to the next. That’s all.

THIS IS WHO I AM
For me now, I feel that climbing is a part of who I am. It’s my way of life. It’s my way of expressing myself. My way of being in the world. In the past, I questioned it a lot. Now it’s obvious. This is who I am. This is what I do.

Sources:
Katie Brown: Vertical World: Conversations with Today’s Masters of Rock, FalconGuide 2007
Chris Sharma: The Beginner’s Mind, “Climbing” 2003, No. 221
Fitz Cahall: King of the Kings, see: http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/threedegrees/index.html