(Video link here.) We didn’t know that skiing without snow is possible until we saw Candide Thovex soar down sheer rock faces, volcanos and grass covered mountains, through jungles, water, gravel, asphalt, dirt and leaves, along the slats of a wooden bridge, the sand dunes of a vast dessert, and the Great Wall of China. The magical, thrilling, curiously uplifting two minutes was filmed as an ad for Audi, to serve as a vibrant illustration of the tagline,

All conditions are perfect conditions.

 

Yikes! The appropriation of a perfectly good life principle by a car company.

 

So we went on the hunt for poetry that might add an unexpected view of Thovex’s mighty journey. We found it in the diminutive, great Little Zen Companion:

 

It loved to happen.

—Marcus Aurelius

 

One real world is enough.

—Santayana

 

 

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.

—Chuang-tzu

 

 

Great Faith.

Great Doubt.

Great Effort.

—the three qualities necessary for training

 

 

If a man wishes to
be sure of the road he treads on,
he must close his eyes and
walk in the dark.

—St. John of the Cross