(Part 3 of “Running With The Buddhas,” an occasional and somewhat haphazard series by an average sort of running/sitting guy that will dip lightly into a few of the foundational classics of Buddhist literature and how runners can relate practically to them. You can read the intro here; part 1 here), part 2 here.}
Song Of Mind: Wisdom from the Zen Classic Xin Ming
by Chan Master Sheng Yen
Shambhala Publications, 2004
Runners have an amusingly paradoxical attitude to pain and discomfort. We’ll complain about the humidity, the heat, the cold, the hills, the wind, even to the point of seeking to avoid entering races that are too hilly or in undesirable climates. At the same time, we’ll make excuses for truly serious physical stresses or injuries so that we can continue running until we literally cripple ourselves. Zen practitioners on retreat also find plenty of reasons to complain: the lack of proper air conditioning, the noise that the air conditioning is making, the somewhat rank odor of the less than completely tidy person sitting next to us, our aching, throbbing knees and backs. It’s what we signed up for, but we often want to experience it only on our own terms.
While we should obviously take action if we’re in danger of serious physical injury, it’s usually best to remember these lines from the Xin Ming:
Those not moved by their environment
Are strong and great.
Sheng Yen notes that pain in the legs is a physical phenomenon but not the thoughts derived from that pain, which he states as being “a product of your discriminating, self-centered mind.” “Pain is pain,” he says, ” but the mind that experiences the pain will remain calm or become vexed.” I’m a major comfort-seeker, and during the latter stages of an ultra it often takes all of my concentration and then some to stop obsessing about what I’m feeling and how hard the course seems to be. There have been races where I was unable to stem the negative mental and emotional tide, and ruined my chances of finishing.
Sheng Yen admits it’s difficult not to be influenced by our environment and by what is going on with our bodies. But if we remain focused, we can catch our minds throwing self-pity parties and quickly bring ourselves back to the job that needs to be finished. As a Zen practitioner, training and running in ultras is a terrific practice opportunity, similar in many ways to extended meditation retreats in their physical, mental, and emotional demands. But that doesn’t mean actively seeking to ignore or block out the stress or pain. That only makes more work and extends your stress level.
You, your environment: who’s leading who?
Once again, as elsewhere in his commentaries, Sheng Yen emphasizes the need to simply stay on method and concentrate on what you’re doing: running form; following your breath. Following your breath is always the right solution. We begin our lives with a breath and end it with one, and in-between, we breathe over 600 million times. Returning to the breath is going back home. Whenever I begin to enter a darker moment during a race and feel my mind’s thoughts scattering like a herd of stampeding cattle, I try to return to my breath and begin counting breaths again. This instinctively slows me down temporarily and calms me, helping me collect myself and refocus. Once again, I am in control of my environment, rather than letting climate, course conditions, and my own pain or discomfort lead me around by the nose. It’s such an easy thing to do, and such a wonder at how difficult it often seems to be.
Extended Zen retreats and ultramarathons offer highly concentrated opportunities to realize how the vexations and pleasures of our lives come and go like passing banks of clouds, and why it’s so exhausting to get caught up in every single one of them. Don’t fight through the bad moments; simply return to your method. Eventually we learn the bad moments, as well as the good moments, are just moments. It’s only when our egos get involved, Sheng Yen says, that moments become “good” or “bad.”
Master Sheng Yen’s commentaries on the Xin Ming are invaluable for both Zen practitioners and runners. These little posts have only skimmed a few centimeters of the surface, but I’m going to leave his countless other insights for you to discover. He’s no dewy-eyed mystic, that’s for sure. And I still think he would have made a great high school track coach. I’ll try to return to this occasional series in a week or two and hopefully perhaps introduce you to some more excellent contemporary books on another Buddhist literary classic, but I need to do some more reading, running, and sitting first. Summer’s already here with guns a-blazin’, and if we’re going to run and sit through it, we really need to concentrate!
