My best running kicks in after about 8 miles. Fluid running, but really it's the mind that's clear - no thoughts! If that's not Zen then I don't know what is! I don't know about you, when you run, but for the first 6 miles or so, I'm in my own headspace as usual, thinking about STUFF! Same like a campfire and every other free time in life. But there comes a point when maybe the running is hard, or I'm just flying along, that thoughts cease and I (sometimes) leave my body, or am only my body, or I'm a ball of light... every runner must know this feeling.
So, to the point. Today I'm thinking about a Sek's monkey in Malaysia and its behaviour. Like a 2 yr old child. They have no maturity and they never mature beyond this point, even as adults. And then I was thinking about how we think: we use language. Language defines our thoughts - try thinking without words! Without words it's very hard to construct plans or ideas, or even compose anything useful in your mind. Without words there is no long term planning, only an immediate now or possibly your next immediate move.
If you were to remove our language capability from our heads then we have no ability to reason - at least not to any great extent. That no-language, to me, as I understand both, is Zen... no language is meditating on top of a mountain, it's fly fishing a great hatch and nailing all the fish. It's how we were before language, it's how monkeys are, it's how dogs are. It is the existing that Buddhism teaches. And it feels pretty fucking awesome...
It's a bit like eating mushrooms while sitting on a sofa (for the non-runners here).
Cheers, Paul