Run With Mu

How do you race and remain true to your Zen practice? Isn’t being competitive the very antithesis of Zen? Can you stoke the competitive fires without burning up, or out, in the process? I’ve just asked myself some good questions! Here’s something in the way of an answer, based on many invaluable years of personal mistakes.

There is nothing wrong with a healthy competitive urge; it’s part of the human animal, what makes us (along with opposable thumbs and a big ol’ brain and such) the Deciders, the final link in the food chain. But we can definitely overdo it. Shouting at people during a race – drivers, pedestrians or cyclists who accidentally (or, sadly, sometimes on purpose) get in our way — is one sign we’re redlining the competitive urge. Stretching the truth about how we did in a race is another sign that perhaps we’re too focused on the numbers rather than the experience. Entering multiple races very close together in frantic search of that ideal race time or experience, sort of the runner’s equivalent of playing the slots, is a borderline emotional addiction that can lead to burnout and physical injury.

And it can spill over into our Zen practice, as anyone knows who has experienced a mild feeling of smug satisfaction when it’s the person on the cushion next to them who sneezes during zazen, rather than themselves, or the frustration and annoyance that can flare when our teacher isn’t satisfied with our response in dokusan. I can sit quieter than anybody, I can pass koans faster than anybody! I’m a Zen monster! Get out of my way, people!

We should honor the competitor in us, as it can be a very healthy and useful part of our lives – when nurtured and watched carefully. And after all, the vast majority of runners, including me, are really only competing against ourselves. Which is why we should:

1. Set realistic stretch goals. Maybe a 3:45 marathon is a doable stretch goal for you. Maybe a Boston Marathon or Western States qualifier is not. You know yourself better than anyone, if you look clearly. When planning your next running challenge, be honest with yourself and where you are currently with your running, then look at what you’re hoping to achieve. Delusion only leads to frustration, exhaustion, and injury.

2. Don’t play the slots. There are a few acceptable reasons for running several grueling races very close together, but hoping you’ll get lucky and have that perfect race time or experience isn’t one of them. It’s hard on your body and can be very wearing on you emotionally when things don’t go your way. Which leads to …

3. Training can prepare you, but it can’t guarantee you. While they have their advantages and many success stories, I feel there’s a potentially harmful side effect of following precise race training regimens such as those espoused by Pfitzinger or Daniels: believing that scientifically precise training always leads to scientifically precise results. There are so many variables in any given race that it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. Do the best you can based on your training, and take what the day gives you.

4. Stop looking at that watch. Stop it, I said. Stopwatches can serve a useful purpose. But who’s running this race, your watch or you? It’s so easy to get caught up in those blinky little digital numbers and forget what’s going on all around you. There are many amazing and inspiring personal stories unfolding around you with every step, and there you are — head down, desperately trying to recalculate your mile splits. If you must race with a stopwatch, think of it as a helpful tool, not the judge of your personal worth. Time? As a sage once sang, Time just keeps on slippin’, slippin’ into the future.

5. Sometimes the cartoon characters win. It’s tough to swallow sometimes, but that slightly oversized woman in the turtle costume? That dweeby, pale guy in the pink tutu? Look; they’re beating you. And there will always be people faster than you, in costume or out of it. Don’t let your ego destroy your race by forcing you to try to outrun those who you feel superior to. We’re all cartoon characters, when you get down to it; some of us just like to wear the uniform.

6. Enjoy the best, forget the rest. When you have a great race, absolutely tell everyone you know and savor the experience for awhile … then let it go. When you have a bad race, don’t hide from your friends or spend weeks poring over your training log, trying to figure out the exact moment in time when it all went off the rails. Chalk it up as a day in the life … and let it go. Letting go of our races, good and bad, can be hard, but doing so lets us start our new challenges with a fresh slate.

Honor your inner competitor, without being enslaved by it. It’s a great awareness practice point for your running.

Hello, body. What were you telling me last Thursday evening as I sat in zazen, minding my own business? You said that you were thirsty for a longer run, to go back up in the hilly neighborhoods around the lake and see things I hadn’t seen in awhile.

My mind didn’t agree with you, did it? On the calendar for Saturday: a brief hour’s run out my door and through my immediate neighborhood. That was what the schedule dictated. That was what my mind said to do, laid out weeks before in the chart it had carefully created. And it argued about this sudden rebellion against the plan. No time, too far, too much, what about the schedule?

But I listened to you, body. I trusted that thirst in you, rather than follow the preconceived plan my mind had created. And I went long, longer than I had gone in many weeks. I saw mating mallards, squadrons of refugee green parrots, old familiar houses undergoing fresh transformations. I leaned into the breeze and listened to the water slap against the shoreline, and I continued past the hour my mind had planned and kept going, going, until I reached my car again in a little over two hours.

And you felt so satisfied, body, if a little more tired than perhaps my mind had intended. And I had certainly gone farther, much farther, than the plans my mind had made.

But we had experienced so much that was good, and your satisfaction told me listening to you was the right thing to do. I promise to listen to you more often, when you want to go longer. And yes, I promise to listen when you hurt or are tired, and want to go shorter — or even stop altogether, which is sometimes the hardest thing for me to hear you say, even when you say it as loud as you can.

It’s not that my mind isn’t helpful, body; we both know that. As we go about our business, we owe it a great deal. But I can let it rule the roost sometimes, can’t I? You have a lot of helpful things to tell me, too. But instead of feeling like a full and equal partner, you feel perhaps a little like a servant — right, body? Or even a slave.

It’s like the great Rinzai Zen master Yamamoto Gempo said in a commentary on the koan Mu: “Our minds are continually running.” I promise to let my mind run less, and let you run more.

The advantages of an off-season for runners brought to mind what, if any, would be the advantages of an off-season for Zen practitioners. After all, if easing back on the gas pedal for an extended period of time can refresh and renew our perspective on running, why couldn’t the same principle apply to our Zen practice?

Perhaps the most important difference is the physical aspect of both practices. The training schedule for a series of, say, 3-4 ultra marathons or more over the course of a year is pretty grueling, and to continue to train at that level for a number of years without a real break would eventually break anyone down. Of course, sitting zazen can also be extremely physically demanding, especially over the course of a week-long (or longer) sesshin. Based on my experience, I’d have to say training for ultras is tougher on the body over the long haul — although I’m not discounting the physical effort required to sit perfectly still, without back support and with good posture, for days on end, and with little sleep.

But it’s the mind aspect of Zen that makes year-round practice necessary. Part of Zen is learning how to sit (and live) with everything: the days you feel really tired or mildly sick, or burned out or bored, or very busy with a dozen other things, or wondering what the point of sitting really is and if it’s worth it. In fact, it’s the same days that often serve as a warning sign of overtraining for many runners that are the most fertile ground for Zen practice to flourish.

For runners, our bodies need a physical break to avoid burnout, excessive fatigue, or injury. For Zen practitioners, our minds need as much training in as many varying conditions as possible. I can’t say I sit every day — there are days that, for one self-imposed reason or another, I miss out. And I can’t deny that often when I miss a day, I return to sitting the next day feeling more thirsty for it, and drink more deeply.

But the longer I practice, the more I realize the value of sitting every day. We’re all works in progress, and the world is the laboratory where we are being tested. To get the best possible results, however each of us defines “best results,” we need to conduct our self experiments regularly, daily, and in all possible test conditions, just like any good scientist would do. Otherwise, our data collection will be forever biased toward our good moods. And our Zen practice devolves into just sitting by ourselves when we feel like it.

Their small eyes slowly widen, a secretive grin of anticipation … suddenly they take off, tiny legs pumping unsteadily like pistons misfiring, feet slapping the floor in drunken rhythm, breath coming in excited gasps and hoots until smiling adults come up quickly behind them — “Gonna getcha!” — and swoop them up to wild shrieks of infant joy. Run like toddlers in airports: always running from everything and toward everything, each step and breath filled with full awareness of the simple joy of motion, the thrill of an unknown journey.