One of the key benefits of applying mindfulness when running, is learning to run with more joy and equanimity. Here equanimity is describing a sense of calmness, composure and stability. So how might we experience this?
Running – a pleasure or a chore?
Over the last four years, the RUN:ZEN team have led a variety of in-person and online workshops. We’ve met many people along the way, from experienced runners to complete beginners. A common theme that comes up for people is how running can sometimes be a struggle, both mentally and physically. Others notice that their enjoyment and pleasure of running has diminished over time. Rest assured we’ve also worked with plenty of people for whom the love affair still burns brightly!
Of course, even when we’re quite new to running, we quickly get to recognise the mixed bag of thoughts, feelings, emotions and bodily sensations we might experience – both during the same run or from one run to another.
Mindfulness as present moment awareness
So what is it that specifically defines a run as a mindful run, and why might bringing mindfulness to our activity be valuable to us?
To be present is to be open and receptive to our changing moment to moment experience.
Running with mindfulness has to do with actively paying attention to both body and mind. To pay attention is to be present. We are present with our embodied experience, our mental and emotional state, and with our environment. To be present is to be open and receptive to our changing moment to moment experience. This openness is characterised by embracing all of our experience as it arises without reactivity, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
Mindfulness as equanimity
Equanimity has the taste of freedom from the judging mind.
Sometimes when we run, the body feels great and the mind is focused and relaxed. Other times we may be battling negative self-talk and bodily discomfort. However, these are all temporary states that come and go. If we can meet all of this with a mindful attitude, we learn to contain the full breadth of our experience without judgement. This is the view of equanimity. True equanimity does not deny or disregard the difficulties that will arise when we run, nor does it cling unnecessarily to the joys of running.
To sustain our liking or disliking of these fleeting moments only takes us further away from our direct experience. In the words of Rumi, we “welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows…”. Equanimity, in allowing us to drop any grasping or aversion to our experience, has the taste of freedom from the judging mind.
So this is what it means to find equanimity in our running. We can learn how to cultivate this quality by running mindfully. We begin to run free of judgement, and mindful awareness and attention is the key.
Joy as a naturally arising state of mind
We also suggest that greater enjoyment of our running can be found through mindfulness. How can we support this claim when some occasions that we run may be largely experienced as dissatisfying?
We have just considered the fruit of equanimity as offering a sense of ease and freedom that transcends the dualities of good and bad, liking and disliking. As we develop our muscle of mindfulness we become a broader and deeper container to hold the never-ending flow of our experience. With the mind seemingly untroubled by judgements of ‘this or that’, we can begin to look more deeply at the qualities of our natural state of mind. We may associate the unperturbed mind with feelings of clarity, focus, ease and rest, which in turn brings forth a natural sense of joyfulness.
As we train ourselves in becoming more mindful in all of our day-to-day activities, we can begin to more regularly experience this quality of joy as naturally arising.
The Buddhist view of the mind’s true nature identifies joy as one of its fundamental qualities. The cultivation of mindfulness is offered as a means to more readily access such innate attributes of the mind. As we train ourselves in becoming more mindful in all of our day-to-day activities, we can begin to more regularly experience this quality of joy as naturally arising. If joy is therefore recognised as a natural quality of the mind, then applying mindfulness when we run offers an access point to the joy which is always present and available to us. Joy can arise when we learn how to let be and let go of the busy judgemental mind. Basically, we learn how to get out of our own way.
Putting it in to practice
In the end this all comes down to practice. We cannot expect to just run and for joy and equanimity to be permanently established. So where to start? We would invite you to read our post “What is mindful running.” This will help you to get the building blocks in place. We wish you well on your journey.