_____ Is My Meditation

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. Hi, my name's Andy and welcome to Radio Headspace. So it's Tuesday morning and I wonder if you've already done some kind of meditation, some kind of perhaps physical exercise today. It always interests me how people think about looking after the mind, training the mind. And obviously I know a lot of you probably do some kind of meditation, something like that, if you're listening to this show, but I know some of you won't as well. You may well have a broader interest in health. I meet many people who say, "I don't meditate, running's my meditation," or whatever it might be. It's interesting 'cause many of those activities, although there is a mindful quality to them, in fact some of them I would say even help cultivate a mindful quality, so really important, really, really useful. They're still fundamentally different from meditation and training the mind in that more formal capacity and there's a good reason why. If you imagine that you are in a difficult situation, perhaps there's an argument with a partner or somebody, or maybe it's even your boss at work, and it's getting very stressful and you feel yourself getting increasingly tense, it's very difficult in that situation if you are dependent on, let's say, running, if running is your meditation, if running is the place that you go to to find a place of calm and clarity in your mind, in that moment, it's very difficult to bring that about. We don't really have that luxury in life. Whereas if we've trained in meditation, it's not that we need to stop and meditate. We are carrying with us that quality of mind. You know, we could say the same for all of those activities. There is something that happens when we are still in meditation where we somehow deepen our awareness so that it becomes part of our everyday being. It doesn't just happen when we are engaged in activity, it actually remains part of our life, so when we're in a difficult situation, we are actually able to make it part of that situation, it's not something separate and that's a really important point of difference because, for me, that's the real value of meditation. The value of meditation isn't found in closing our eyes and sitting still on our own. The value of meditation is in training that quality of mind and bringing that into our everyday life. Of course, the best approach of all is to have both where we are not only training in meditation, but we also have other activities, physical activities that promote good physical health, but at the same time help us to train our mind. But as you consider different ways of looking after your mind, I'd really kind of think about that and I say this having spoken to somebody the other day. It was a wife of a friend and my friend loves surfing and she said, "Oh,...