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Merce Cardus

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Don’t overdo running, underdo it

in Health & Well-being on 10/10/14

Don't overdo running, underdo it

Fred Rohe  was a regular runner for more than four years when he wrote The zen of running. This short book, published in 1974, combines beautiful black and white photographs with poetic prose. In short, it reminds us that running can be fun, and a way not to get somewhere but to find yourself.

Lao Tzu wrote the book Tao Te Ching about 2500 years ago. The most fundamental textbooks on the philosophy and methodology of spiritual development questioned the very idea of getting somewhere. Things may happen, if one simply wait. It sounds like passivity; however, it’s really a quiet receptivity, a subliminal maturation.

All you need to find yourself is to look inside and listen to your body. Lao Tzu easily put it, <<At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are, and you know what you want>>. The zen of running motivates us to experience accepting small rewards and overcoming our ego to meet a goal in running and in life.

Don’t overdo it, underdo it
You aren’t running because
You’re in a hurry to get somewhere.
It’s your choice of whether
to run to punish your self
or to experience your self
if you choose, with me, the latter,
then every run can be joyful.
The key words are,
Take it easy!
create your self as a runner
gradually, patiently, relaxedly.
you see,
it’s quite a relative and individual thing,
the distance question.
how old are you?
how long are your legs?
how much do you weigh?
what imaginary distance
do you feel comfortably with?
What do I mean calling this running
“a newly discovered form of meditation”?
Isn’t meditation done sitting cross-legged
on the floor with closed eyes?
I mean that meditation is a state of being,
not a physical position.
I can run in a state that is just as meditative,
perhaps more so
than when sitting Buddha-like.
From the experience of running meditatively
I learn that potentially my entire life
can be lived meditatively,
and it seems to me I should learn to live it so
to me this means that I will be calmly, courageously, alertly, intelligently, energetically
present for each moment of my living
until life is done with this body.

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