The question “What is spiritual practice?” can be answered in many ways. From the sacrificial rites of early civilizations, to what myriad faiths and sects call “prayer” and supplication to an all powerful God, spirituality is more than what we believe, it is also what we do. Why? Could it be that we want something more than our thoughts, something beyond belief, something that does not flinch from the uncompromising quality of our mortality? All world religions prescribe specific and requisite routines that adherents do regularly as a means to more clearly understand. Spirituality, in whatever form, is “practiced”.
To further define the term “spiritual practice”, it is accurate to say that it is repetitive, rhythmic. The linguistic root for rhythm is akin to name of the Rhine river, and in its essence seeks to convey a notion of flow or continuous replenishment. Whether it be daily blood offerings of Mayan priests or the Roman Catholic mass, the Muslim’s call to prayer or the hours of clicking from a Vajrayana Buddhist’s mala beads, all spiritual practices harness the energy of renewal that dwells within us.
A third aspect of spiritual practice is that in whatever form, it endures and has its roots imbedded in one or other ancient traditions. A certain sifting is required, wherein the practice dwells deeply in the fabric of its time and place, but has the enduring power to not be swept away by the vagaries of cultural and political upheaval.
This book lies within the Buddhist tradition of mindfulness/awareness meditation, a refinement of the ancient contemplative traditions of Hindu sages dating back to 5000 BCE. In establishing and conveying this powerful and ancient body of wisdom Prince Siddharta Gautama, known as the Buddha, or "awake one", applied an elegantly simple approach: observing his own immediate experience. After unsuccessfully trying to overcome the difficulties of the human condition through the many spiritual techniques that flourished in the late Vedic civilization he inhabited, including extreme asceticism and the cultivation of supernatural powers, Prince Gautama dropped all hope of transcendence and simply looked unconditionally at his own experience for seven years. The very act of looking at the present instant, again and again, was the skillful means for his awakening. He spent the remainder of his life imparting what he learned to his disciples and died a mortal death.
Legend tells us that due to the supreme quality of his awareness, the Buddha said that he would return and offer techniques of contemplation that would benefit beings in other times, other karmic situations. The legendary Buddha Maitreya is one of several "manifestations" of the Buddha, is a time traveler, and who happens to be the embodiment of compassion. This acute level of prajna or "compassionate knowing" and upaya or "skillful means" characterizes how the Buddha's wisdom trancends the limits of historical or even personal specificity. It might be presumptuous to speculate on "how would the Buddha tell us to practice today?", but surely our particular situation would inform his instructions to us.
The present age is one of great possibilities and also great distraction. We moderns can be apprehensive to engage in the discipline of classical contemplative practice, whatever tradition it comes from. We often approach the quest for meaning and depth the way we approach other challenges: with our rational minds. We are “up in our heads”, and can even think our bodies stand in the way of deepening our understanding of ourselves and our world.
Running, like other “somatic”, or body-centered disciplines, including the Buddha’s technique of sitting meditation, brings the practitioner back to his/her body, the basic ground of our experience. Some of us may need more physical exertion than just sitting meditation affords. Just as our cultural proclivity is to “check out” through activities that allow us to disassociate from the body, so too can meditative practice be “heady” or detached from the physicality of our embodied experience.[1] The relatively strenuous and “grounded” quality of running can counter both the physical symptoms of the modern person’s sedentary malaise and his or her tendency to try and “think through” every personal challenge and the accumulation of adrenal biproducts from modern life's speed and complexity.
That millions of people run regularly does not mean they are tapping its potential for deep spiritual transformation, even if running for health is extremely beneficial. Just as sitting under a tree in the conventional sense is unlikely to be what experienced masters call “meditation”, running for the purpose of true personal discovery requires specific instruction, which this book seeks to provide. The book is divided into two parts: the view, or philosophical and scientific aspect of becoming an awake runner, and the actual practice that allows the aspirant to use running as a tool of personal transformation.
Neither instruction in spiritual philosophy or practice alone are sufficient to deliver transformative effects, and the Buddha cautioned against relying on only one. He understood that one cannot simply start applying techniques for examining and taming the mind without some understanding of how our minds work.
Part One of this book is mainly historical. Modern Human Beings’ find themselves at a crisis, personally, socially and ecologically. The roots of this crisis lie relatively late in our species’ history, and are predated by a long period of deep and complete connectedness to our world. Distance running was an integral part of this period and of our pre-human evolution. If approached correctly, it is a way of accessing a significant part of our birthright as humans.
Part Two explains how approaching our running as a means of self discovery rather than a means of self improvement is fundamental to using our daily run as tool for understanding who we are rather than becoming who we want to be. It is important to separate the spiritual practice of running from the contemporary habit of “working out”. Certain conventional assumptions need to be questioned, not just about our bodies and ideals about beauty and physical health, but about the how we experience the world. Cultivating one’s motivation and approach through learning paves the way to making our running into more than just a workout, and places it appropriately within the tradition of the Buddha and the enlightened beings who followed in his footsteps.
Part Three is a detailed manual on how to use a regular running routine into a tool for taming our minds and expanding our awareness. This progressive approach is designed for both the beginning runner and the veteran.
That experienced meditators and runners alike will find some of this book familiear is no coincidence. I have been a regular runner for over 25 years, a regular meditator in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition for almost 15. When once the two activities competed for my time, I am increasingly loath to compartmentalize them. This book is the expression of that co-mingling.
Perhaps you have glimpsed at things while running (or riding the bus) that you would like to examine more intensively, but usually find running to be painful and boring. Perhaps you are an accomplished runner who wants to use this hard-won skill as a way to explore the patterns and habits of your mind. Perhaps you are already doing some form of contemplative practice, but would like to add a more body-centered practice to your routine. This book is presented so that any of these types of readers can cultivate a “spiritual” running practice. It is important that the readers not “skip ahead”, particularly in Part II. Just like learning to play a musical instrument, failing to learn and master the fundamentals will stunt the student’s progress and lead to recurrent frustration. A lack of proficiency in the basics will prevent the spiritual runner from being able to follow more subtle and “advanced” techniques. Just like cooking a gourmet meal, no one step is difficult in the process of becoming an “awake runner”, the trick is putting these steps in the proper order.
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