exercise

The speaker discusses various forms of exercise that have spiritual benefits. Yoga is not just physical exercise but a discipline of the mind and body. Tai Chi is a form of mindfulness and healing. Walking meditation is practiced slowly and mindfully. Running can lead to entering a trance-like state called "the zone." There are running routes and events that are considered part of a training program. Internal martial arts like Xingyi and Baokao have gentle exercises that can be done throughout one's life. These exercises keep one fit and well. Hi everyone, I thought I'd talk about exercise, spiritual exercise, today, and the first one I'm going to talk about, most people probably are familiar with it to a degree, is yoga. Yoga is very useful if it's done slowly. A lot of the yoga that is done now, the Hatha yoga has just become a form of physical exercise in the West. In fact, it is a form of Tantra, it is the slowness and entering a posture and using that posture to relax into, you'll always hear every teacher who's any good, will always talk about relaxation and smiling and trying to be happy in a pose. And so it's a discipline of the mind combined with the body and very useful. Now, the next one I just want to mention briefly is Tai Chi, which most people will be familiar with. It's a form of Tai Chi Chuan, it's a grand ultimate fist, it's a form of martial art, but it's used mostly in the West and in the East as a form of healing and as a form of exercise. But in fact, again, it's a form of mindfulness, it's a form of attention, of focus, and you have to be well in order to do any form of existence, let's say. Now, the other one that some people will be familiar with is walking meditation. I used to go to a center, a Buddhist center, where everything was, and they do this very much in Zen as well, where the sitting meditation was interrupted by walking. And there's a, in Wimbledon, there's a temple there, and they teach to the beginners, they start them off with walking meditation, or they did last time I went. So that's quite interesting. And again, that is done very slowly. There's a walking style that is used in Tai Chi, which is very similar. You basically learn to walk very slowly and mindfully. In fact, I used to do it at a ridiculously slow pace, because I just found that utilized every single muscle and you really had to focus on the walking. It works. It's very, very useful. Now, what else have we got? Oh, now, if you're talking about people doing some other forms of exercise, for instance, running, the people enter the zone. Now the zone is quite interesting, because it's a type of, it's a kind of trance. It's very much something where the running just takes over. And you just run, you're just aware of running, the idea or the sense of self goes and you just enter the zone. And running is actually used, there's quite near to me, in Battersea, there's a, what do they call it? The, I don't know what they call it, but it's something like the meditation mile. And it's along, it's along the river Thames in Battersea Park. And there's a, there's a temple, there's a Buddhist, well, a Buddhist stupa in the middle. And this, this run along the river is considered part of a training program that I think was set up by Sri Aurobindo. And even nearer to me, there's a running track where they do a constant, a constant run for, it's over a weekend. And everybody who finishes gets some sort of, that's quite an achievement, because you run day and night. So, this is another, another form of entering the zone. And one last thing I want to mention is the other internal martial arts, which I did train in. The, probably the two most well known, after the Tai Chi, Chuan, is the Xingyi and Baokao. And these are, and also people will do this, because one of the problems with, with doing martial arts is you, you need partners, you need space, and all the rest of it. But the internal martial arts, if you do the Qigong, which is the pre-exercise, the warm-ups, which are used in a lot of martial arts, anyway, but the, the internal martial arts have very gentle and specific and build-up exercises, which can be do, which can be done over a whole lifetime. So, you can do them when you're young, and you can do them when you're very old. They keep you fit, keep you well, keep you going. Okay, that's all from me for today. Bye now.