Sakyong Mipham on Running with The Mind of Meditation

To fulfill his promise of building a school in Tibet, the Sakyong became running marathons to raise money. >> SMR: These they go in your shoe. As soon as you cross the starting line and the finish line then it checks your time. >> Mitchell Levy: And do they have check points to make sure you are not running off course? >> SMR: You know I am sure you could take a cab. [laughs] >> Mitchell Levy: [laughs] That’s what I would do. >> SMR: I think they have a way of doing it. [whistle] >> Starter: Five, four, three, two, one [horn sounds] >> SMR: We're running for Tibet, we're running for these causes, and every time you know you have a little bit of suffering, it's going to help a lot of people. [cheering and clapping] I think in the West sometimes the body and mind have been split up; so when people think about meditation or spirituality, they think it's very much distancing themselves from body per se. They are actually meant to be united. Sometimes when you first start running you have a lot of thoughts. Just like in meditation, when you first sit down you have a lot of thoughts. And then once you begin to move, you begin to balance your mind and body; so I think it's the same with any kind of sport or activity. If you're riding a horse; it's the balance. If you're skiing or if you're playing golf, whatever it may be; there's the kind of mind-body coordination. And that's inherent; And that's inherent; because the notion of meditation is that you're synchronizing your mind with your body. You're using the present moment as your gauge; and as soon as you let your mind go too far into the future, like how long do I have and things like this, automatically sometimes you get to be tired. The present moment can be this very full moment. As you're running, if you can be there, time goes by very quickly. The more processed the mind becomes the stronger it becomes, the more flexible it becomes. Same with the body. I think if you train the body, it becomes stronger and more flexible. From the feature documentary An Uncommon King For more information visit http://AnUncommonKing.com/© 2012 Joyful Vajra Production Developed in cooperation with Center East Media