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Written by Kenn Sava
I hate boxing.
The only time I’ve ever watched it was when Cassius Clay, and then Muhammad Ali fought.
Why?
I have no idea, really. As a kid, he was just cool. Audacious. A poet.
“Float Like A Butterfly
Sting Like A Bee.”
Ok!
Then? He became
More.
He took it all to another level. First, he transcended losing. “I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.”
Then he transcended boxing.
Then he transcended sport.
Then he transcended politics.
Then he transcended national boundaries.
He was someone who had been to the mountaintop. He had survived everyone trying to bring him down- 61 in the ring (winning 56 times, beating guys named Liston, Frazier and Foreman), those who controlled the ring, the government, Parkinson’s disease, and on and on. All the while, he remained true to himself. Though he was ill for much of his later life (Hey? it was a miracle he survived those fights, right?), when I saw him on TV doing this or that, it was like seeing a vision. He struck me as something of a Bodhisattva, a being who, though he has achieved enlightenment, forgoes nirvana out of compassion in order to save others.
Why?
I believe Muhammad Ali was a Bodhisattva of the human spirit- indomitable, endlessly creative, a believer in himself, his courage, his cherished values. I have a feeling that whenever people saw him at these things, it was a reminder to those who remember- a “man who overcame so much, and he’s still standing,” moment, and he was a touchstone for those that didn’t remember. A living legend. A lesson, and example, for us all, incarnate.
“For what is a man, what has he got
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he trule feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.”*
After all, isn’t the the ideal, the supreme accomplishment in boxing? To be the one left standing at the end?
Here we have the ultimate boxing metaphor in one human life. We have a man who transcended everything there was to transcend in life. And, in the end, he was still standing.
Muhammad Ali remains undefeated- in life.
*-Soundtrack for this Post is “My Way,” by Paul Anka and Claude Francois as performed by Frank Sinatra. Published by Chrysalis Music Group, Inc.
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