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Chapter 1

If you’re like most people, including me, you exercise for a variety of reasons. You’re depressed so you exercise to cheer up, or you’re anxious and want to calm down. Maybe you hope to relax or zone out. Perhaps you seek bliss and joy, an escape from your troubles. Or you want to feel strong. Then again, you might just want to look fabulous in your swimsuit. No shame in that. The beach beckons.

Plus, you’re already busy. There’s the partner and the kids and the dog. You need to mow the lawn. That work project is (still) due, and those groceries aren’t going to shop for themselves.

So why add what sounds like another task? Your mind gets a workout every day, all day long. Isn’t exercise a time to give it a rest? Why pile what seems like another layer on top of your current exercise routine?

After all, meditation of any sort takes time, energy, grit, determination, and discipline. As contemporary Buddhist Monk Bhante Gunaratana (Bhante G.) says in Mindfulness in Plain English, “Meditation takes gumption.”^[1] Why on Earth would you want to infuse your movement with something that requires effort and dedication?

There are a host of reasons.

You’re probably already aware of the many ways movement improves your life. Meditation enhances that. Studies on people who meditate show the physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits ranging from improved athletic performance to growing new brain cells.^[2] Combine the two for a supercharged growth recipe.

But there’s an even more compelling reason to add meditation to your movement routine.

Freedom.

Beneath any desire you may have to relax, zone out, or toughen up, and under that wish to look and feel physically and mentally better, lies the urge for freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom from suffering.

And that—freedom from suffering—is the main reason I bother.

Mindfulness Meditation

Hundreds of definitions exist for the word “meditation.” The type of meditation I practice follows a tradition dating back thousands of years: Vipassana, insight, often translated “to see clearly.” The technique is called “mindfulness.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School offers an elegant definition:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally, as if your life depended on it.”

—Jon Kabat-Zinn^[3]

Rather than escape from experiences, mindfulness meditation teaches us to be fully present with them. Instead of escaping from our lives, we escape into them.

I learned to meditate while I was moving, and you can too.

Why this form of meditation and not others?

My experience, the experience of countless others, and scientific studies confirm^[4] that these practices—ones that teach you how to keep your head where your feet are—offer freedom from suffering.

If you already have a movement form you enjoy, learning to meditate while you move can refresh, deepen, and renew that movement while opening new doorways of discovery. If you already meditate regularly, attend retreats, or even have a teacher, this book can freshen your practice by adding a new dimension: meditation in motion. If you’ve fallen away from any practice, the suggestions in these pages might bring you back to a joy you once knew.

If you do not have a movement practice, I can help you find one you love and show you how to infuse that with meditative awareness and a calmness of mind to create something beyond exercise—a practice of transformation.

How does meditation create this transformation?

Meditation teaches you how to be in the present moment. That’s the point.

Why the present moment?

The present moment is the only reality, the only thing actually happening. The future has not yet occurred. The past is over. Only in this moment do we have the opportunity to find peace, offer forgiveness, change and grow. Now is the only moment over which we have any control: right here, right now.

Aren’t we right here all the time? What’s the difference?

The difference is what you do with your mind.

Let’s say you are ice skating. It’s crisp, but you’re layered. As you glide around the rink, the motion warms your body. This is the perfect opportunity for movement meditation.

As you skate, you notice pleasant body sensations: the sway of your body, the sound of each blade against the ice, the heat generated by your moving limbs. Positive thoughts may also arise: I am graceful, dancing, alive.

You hone your attention on the thoughts and body sensations of skating. Those thoughts and body sensations bring you right into the moment, fully absorbed. Instead of daydreaming or comparing yourself to the skater at the other end of the rink, your meditation skills keep your mind where your body is. You become curious about how it feels to skate, experiencing your body sensations all the way through, learning from what you find. You don’t struggle with your mind. You become the motion, opening to it and relaxing around it. While your thoughts may wander to what’s for lunch or that big work project, you gently bring your attention back to the present, to your moving body.

All of this is right here. Right now.

A couple of important things are at work here.

First, you’ll experience the mind-body connection, as the separation between your mind and your body begins to disappear.

Second, you’ll experience pleasure both from the focus you are developing and from the movements. Because you enjoy these, you continue to meditate and move and feel better physically and emotionally.

Third, that pleasure also helps you overcome any resistance or negativity you may have, at first around movement and eventually around other daily things as well.

Fourth, as the negativity begins to drop away, you’ll be less reactive to and gentler with yourself and others. You’ll build more equanimity, a curiosity and calm openness of mind, and a non-reactive attitude, allowing you to befriend the thoughts and sensations that arise. These benefits lead to improved mood and energy.

Finally, it can lead to insight into how pushing and pulling on reality causes suffering, not just yours, but everyone else’s as well. As you skate or run or dance or jump or pitch or hit or throw, you’ll see the habits of mind, heart, and body that cause us all such agony.

The skills and insight gained through practice serve us everywhere for the rest of our lives. Once we taste this wisdom, the world opens. We truly see a child’s smile, taste our food, and smell the flowers more than just figuratively. Actions as simple as sensing which foot goes through the door first, feeling your hand grip the racquet, or noticing one breath all the way through can train the mind.

Once you get that, it can change your life in the same positive, helpful way it changed mine.

[1] Ven. Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1993), 7

[2] Patrick Zeis “30 Evidence-Based Benefits of Meditation” https://www.balancedachievement.com/areas-of-life/benefits-of-meditation/

[3] Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. (New York: Hyperion) 4.

[4] Zeis “30 Evidence-Based Benefits of Meditation.”