Ever since I can keep in mind, I’ve battled a deep and insistent melancholy—an undercurrent of sorrow that appears nearly intrinsic to who I’m. Rising up I countered this disappointment with quite a lot of effort, quite a lot of doing. I used to be all the time pushing—pushing to be the primary, to be the most effective, to do and be extra, all the time extra, and the push I obtained from this fixed striving and attaining largely saved my moods at bay. Then I encountered Zen observe and located a welcome refuge in zazen. Whereas sitting nonetheless I spotted there was nothing I wanted to show, no imagined fault I wanted to repair. However in my on a regular basis life it wasn’t all the time straightforward to recollect what on my cushion appeared so self-evident. So over time and with the assistance of zazen, I developed one other observe that has constantly seen me by way of my roughest patches, and that’s “nonetheless operating.”
When my mom died, it was operating that helped me to experience the waves of my grief. I used to be twenty years outdated and had solely been sitting for just a few months, however I’d been operating for ten years and intuitively knew I may use breath and rhythm to maneuver essentially the most overpowering emotions by way of my physique. Years later, my brother died of an overdose. By then I’d realized find out how to transfer into stillness—to make use of my thoughts, my breath, and my physique to softly maintain the ache till I may launch it or till it pale of its personal accord, having exhausted its vitality.
I sensed that one option to counter my disappointment was to run with and thru it.
However even at different occasions, when my ache was merely the ache of on a regular basis dwelling, operating nonetheless offered me with a balm. Lengthy earlier than I’d realized of endorphins or opiate receptors, years earlier than I’d heard of “the zone,” I sensed that one option to counter my disappointment was to run with and thru it. Over time I got here to see there’s two primary sorts of ache: ache we should perceive and ache we are able to solely bear. So when sitting with my emotions grew to become too troublesome, operating with them helped me to really feel with out fixing, to let what was there be there with out judgment or suppression.
To at the present time, operating continues to be a quite simple and dependable supply of pleasure for me. Pleasure at having the ability to inhabit and use this physique. Pleasure on the surprise of breath and motion and the thriller that’s this life.
That’s why throughout this time, which has been marked by a lot loss, a lot change and uncertainty, I’m as soon as once more turning to stillness and motion to seek out ease and stability. Each day I sit for some time, then I lace my sneakers and exit, to not keep away from or run away from the actual challenges that we’re all going through, nor as a result of I maintain any illusions that operating will change the world. I run for a way more humble however irrefutable cause: at its finest, operating modifications me. It helps me transfer previous the constricted view that melancholy brings and it permits me to see that there’s all the time, all the time a a lot wider—in truth, limitless—vary of potentialities.
Observe Nonetheless Working
Simply as breath is the core of seated meditation, it’s additionally the premise of a powerful transferring meditation. While you exit to your subsequent run, attempt the next tips and use your breath because the fulcrum for nonetheless operating.
1. Start by operating at a tempo that you may keep with full consideration throughout your run. At first, you might have to run slower than you’re used to so you’ll be able to maintain a rhythm that can mean you can keep relaxed and targeted.
2. Place your consideration in your hara—a spot about three finger-widths under the navel—and picture this as the bottom or “seat” of your breath. Really feel the inhalation and exhalation transferring out and in of your physique in time with the rise and fall of your stomach, and preserve your consideration anchored on this level. If you happen to get distracted, work together with your ideas the identical method you do in seated zazen: see them, allow them to go, and return to your breath. Let each cell in your physique, each considered your thoughts, be nothing however breath.
3. Subsequent match your breath to your stride, experimenting with totally different respiration patterns. First, attempt inhaling for 3 steps and exhaling for 4 in a 3:4 sample. If you happen to’re operating sooner, attempt a 2:3 sample, putting your consideration on the exhalation and letting the inhalation occur by itself. Discover the distinction in your physique and thoughts while you lengthen the exhalation, or while you enable it to be the identical because the inhalation (a 3:3 or 4:4 sample). I discover that letting the exhalation be barely longer quiets down my ideas and settles my physique.
4. Maintain your mouth closed and breathe by way of your nostril as you run, or inhale by way of the nostril and exhale by way of the mouth. Watch out to not maintain your breath or let the exhale get too lengthy earlier than you inhale once more. If you happen to begin gasping, decelerate a bit. Stroll if you need to. Simply keep related together with your breath and your hara as you progress. Proceed operating at a gentle tempo, letting your breath movement as you are feeling your physique transferring by way of area.
5. Enable your self to be absolutely current to your ideas, your emotions, and the act of operating. Many individuals spend their operating time wishing that it was over; few are literally current because it’s occurring. I believe this can be a disservice to you and to operating. So, as my first trainer, Daido Roshi, used to say, “Do what you’re doing as you’re doing it.” Overlook about what occurred earlier than or what comes subsequent. If you are able to do this, you’ll be making room for pleasure to naturally come up—the enjoyment of being absolutely in your life as you’re dwelling it.
