Running the Spiritual Path: A Runner's Guide to Breathing, Meditating, and Exploring the Prayerful Dimension of the Sport [Hardcover]

If you are a runner, you may have experienced the mental benefits that running provides. You may have also felt a spiritual presence while running, perhaps saying a prayer or working through personal problems while on the trail. In this extraordinary book, Joslin explores this mind/body connection and gives many different ways to experience the spiritual side of the sport. He shares meditative techniques developed over many years and very rich personal experiences with excerpts from his running journal. The book is well thought-out and written with a great deal of humility and care. This is one that I will read again and again. It changed the way I approach running. I also think about this book throughout the day, even when I am not running. A great book!

Austin-based Roger Joslin has written an excellent book for runners who want to bring a new and deeply spiritual dimension not only to their running but to their lives as a whole. My copy is dog-eared, highlighted and annotated to a fare-thee-well. It's a great book.

Although Joslin is an Episcopalian, he brings a number of different spiritual disciplines to the task of "connecting" with (as he calls it) "the Transcendent," the "One" - i.e., God by any other name. Drawing on various practices and techniques of Buddhist meditation, Eastern Orthodox and Islamic chant and prayer, (Western) Christian contemplative practice, Joslin weaves together a practical approach to meditation "on the run" that any spiritually-minded person (even if you're not spiritual in a formal, religious way) can adapt to his or her running program. He breaks runs (especially "out and back" runs) into "stages" that help you prepare for a meditative run, get you into a calm and aware meditative state during the run, and help you extend and enhance the physical and spiritual blessings of a meditative run during cool down when the "running" portion is finished. He draws chiefly on his own experiences, observations and learning, and includes a number of extended passages from his journal that I thought were both interesting and motivating, especially his accounts of runs in New Mexico and rural Texas. Meditative running doesn't shut you off from your surroundings; as Joslin explains (and he's right, in my experience), you connect more to the place and the moment and to a deeper appreciation of your body as you propel yourself through space and time.

If you're looking for a book that will add a new dimension to your running, and that may, perhaps help you realize a deeper and closer relationship with God (assuming you believe in a Supreme Being), "Running the Spiritual Path" will inspire and challenge you.

On the other hand, if you're looking for yet another training manual that will help you run more competitively (faster, farther, longer), don't waste your money. If you're an atheist, an agnostic, a non-deist, or Christopher Hitchens, don't waste your money. If reflections on spirituality, and particularly, Christian spirituality make you uncomfortable, don't waste your money. Likewise, if you're a Christian fundamentalist, you will probably be put off by Joslin's inclusion of prayer and meditation practices from non-Christian paths and any characterization of God as other than the Trinity.

Finally, you might want to read the following books, either as an entrée to Joslin's book or in conjunction with it because they will help you appreciate the "spiritual building blocks" Joslin brings to the subject: Thich Nhat Han's "The Miracle of Mindfulness"; Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Wherever you Go, There You Are"; (Father) Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation"; "The Essential Rumi," edited and translated by Coleman Barks; and the Russian classic, "The Way of a Pilgrim" (any recent translation will do). Oh, and don't forget the Bible.

As a mountain biker interested in the spiritual connections associated with my favorite activity, I was intrigued from the outset upon learning that there was a new book out that explored the meditative and spiritual aspects of running. "Running The Spiritual Path" by Roger D. Joslin is highly recommended to anyone who has ever happened along on his or her own path and felt any kind of spiritual pull and might wish to develop it further. This book can help you to go beyond traditional ways of communication with your creator. By using your breath and other methods explored by the author you may very well develop and heighten your own spiritual senses, a most rewarding goal. Personally, I believe that this breakthrough book is tangible evidence of the ongoing process of a kind of spiritual evolution finally being recognized in the world today. Pick up this book and run with it! You'll end up much farther along than the trailhead from where you usually start your own run.

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