​MINDFUL RUNNING, YOUTHFUL RUNNING

​By Calvin W.A month ago, I had to miss the usual Wednesday night Growlers Group Run from the store because I was in Chicago. Upon my return I learned that BD (Big Dave) had brought his 2 young’uns, Rowan (9) and Maren (7) who each ran some 3.5 miles (See “JRC Growlers Group Run Weds, 6:30 p.m. run, 5/15/2019” email and cross-posted Facebook GGR Group post).

Bless my soul, they showed up again this past Wednesday and here are some of the thoughts that issued from their presence.


To start, Dharma Running’s Eric led us in a standing loving-kindness meditation for Global Running Day. (For the month of June, Dharma Running is changing its Mindful Monday to Watchful Wednesday and joining the Growlers.) We devoted a few minutes of compassionate thoughts about people who are easy to love consecutively to people who elicit neutral emotions. Normally this metta meditation would go the next step to transferring those thoughts to people who aren’t so easy to love thereby helping to cultivate compassion everywhere, but we were going easy for the night. (Presumably we’ll go to the next step in future runs lest we become merely quasi-compassionate people.)

photo courtesy Calvin Wang