06.08.2026
An hour of japa on the treadmill
I get up at six. Water, eight breaths, shower.
At half past six I get on the treadmill with my prayer beads and I stay there an hour, walking slowly and chanting.
This scandalises two kinds of people at once.
Devotees find it irreverent to mix meditation with exercise. The gym people find it an hour wasted at walking pace.
My reason is simple and I learned it by failing: I had two things to do every day without exception, and one of the two always fell through. Never the same one. And I’ve known for forty-five years that what gets done on some days doesn’t get done.
Put together, neither one depends on my having the time or the will. Either both get done or neither does, and doing neither shows too much.
At half past seven I sit down with the card file. At half past eight I have breakfast.
From being a monk I learned that the timetable isn’t an accessory to the spiritual life: it is the spiritual life. The rest is willingness, and willingness comes and goes.
This isn’t advice for you. Your life is a different one. It’s a description of the only thing that has got a sixty-five-year-old man with a wrecked kidney still producing every day.