Finding Presence in Running
Through WAYV, they empower and embrace the politics of putting different, under-represented and marginalized bodies into motion. Together with their weekly training group, they serve an open and inclusive conversation that challenges the satatus quo and thus, the members create a progressive perspective of Berlin and the world. On a sunny May morning, Huyen and Daniel sat down to discuss their meditation and running practice.
DANIEL: When did you start meditating? Did someone introduce you to it?
HUYEN: Forms of meditation have always existed in my life. My family would pray in front of the altar, and I would watch them growing up. We would also go to temples where I would see other people meditating. One of my art teachers introduced us to art therapy and made us "imagine colors and shapes", leading us into meditative states. But the first time I read about meditation was when I was 14. My teacher asked me to hold a presentation on Buddhism because I was the only Asian in my class. So, I went to the library and found out about Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He was friends with Martin Luther King and is still alive. He built a monastery in France and Upstate New York, and I really felt connected reading his books. He is one of the pioneers who brought mindfulness into our Western everyday life. He talks about mindful eating, mindful walking. In 8th or 9th grade, I led a meditation in front of the class.
DANIEL: Honestly, I don't remember when the shift happened because, in retrospect, I've always been doing some form of meditation, just not knowing that it's what I was doing, like with drawing. Similar to Buddhist monks practicing repetitive acts, how you get lost in the motions and it becomes a form of active meditation where you are lucid, but your mind can wander. The type of stuff that I draw or the process that I do for drawing is very ritualistic. I have very specific music that I play and then just make tiny movements with my hand. Throughout that whole process, I'm hyper-focused on these feelings, and once the drawing is done, the whole process is too. The realization of that being meditation though didn't come until much later. With running, it's absolutely a form of meditation. When I first began, I wouldn't think, "Oh, let me go actively meditate." That was just a byproduct of what this thing sets you up to be able to do. Running is the repetitive balance of you, your breathing, your thoughts, and when you can find that super pure running and it goes beyond competition, that's amazing. That's the stuff. When else do we get to do that?
HUYEN: I think that's also how I started running. I never played sports in school, but when I lived with this family in New Jersey, my host mom - who was a super busy doctor with three kids - every single day, no matter how stressful it was, no matter how many babies she delivered, at 5 or 6 PM, she would come home and go run. Just for herself. That was the timeframe in the day where she was present for herself. When she motivated me to start running, I was like: "Fuck this after 15-20 min. This is so annoying, you know?" Eventually, later on, when I worked myself up to 45 or 60 minutes, I felt like I really needed it. I need that every single day.
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