The Meaning of Running Meditation

For me, one of the greatest joys of outdoor running is practicing running meditation.

There are two ways I practice it—both deeply beneficial.

The first is inward: focusing on my breath or the rise and fall of my abdomen.
The second is outward: fully sensing the natural world—the rustle of leaves, the play of light through trees, the scent of damp earth.

One is interoception (turning attention inward); the other is exteroception (attuning to the environment). Both reliably bring mental stillness and bodily ease.

That’s why I never run with music or audiobooks. My daily work already makes it rare to be fully present with nature—not just near it, but in dialogue with it.

Running meditation doesn’t just help us “think less, sense more.” More importantly, it trains non-judgmental awareness: noticing what arises—thoughts, sounds, fatigue—without labeling, resisting, or rushing to interpret.

When breath, stride, and perception align in rhythm, we slip into flow.

But there’s a prerequisite: the body’s movement must serve as an anchor. A steady cadence—feet landing with consistent timing, arms swinging in gentle sync—creates a somatic metronome that grounds attention.

Running is full-body engagement with the world: wind on skin, ground texture underfoot, humidity clinging to the air. This multisensory richness adds depth and dimension far beyond what sight and sound alone deliver.

You can—and should—alternate between inward and outward focus. Especially in the outward mode, you don’t just empty the mind—you sharpen perception. Your hearing becomes more acute; your vision more attentive.

A core source of cognitive bias? We think too much and observe too little. What we imagine often diverges sharply from what’s actually there.

In communication, too, most people listen poorly and look away—while rushing to speak.

Running meditation, in essence, trains the brain to shift from autopilot to awareness mode—a vital counterweight to bias.

What Makes a Good Course

A friend and I recently discussed what defines a truly effective course. We landed on four key traits:

  • Grounded in foundational theory
  • Methodologically simple—or at least intuitively graspable
  • Slightly beyond learners’ current understanding
  • Clearly differentiated from alternatives

Courses with these qualities tend to generate strong perceived value—that quiet “aha” feeling of gaining real insight. And perceived value fuels word-of-mouth.

But here’s the catch: introducing foundational theory can backfire. Done poorly, it raises cognitive load, steepens the learning curve, and pushes learners toward early dropout—damaging both outcomes and reputation.

Take aesthetics—an abstract, slippery concept. Explaining “what aesthetics is” and “how to improve it” is notoriously hard. Most courses on the topic overwhelm or bore learners into quitting.

Yet we can sidestep abstraction by introducing intuitive aesthetics: skip definitions; instead, cultivate instinctive judgment.

The method? Simple: study world-class examples—deeply and deliberately.

Want better architectural taste? Spend a focused hour studying Zaha Hadid’s buildings—or watch a single high-quality documentary on Pritzker Prize winners. You won’t articulate the theory, but you’ll instantly recognize quality, nuance, and hierarchy. Your gut will know which is stronger—and why.

The best mass-market courses don’t dumb things down. They translate complexity into clarity.

The “Search” Opportunity

WeChat’s “Search” feature is today’s equivalent of early-2000s Baidu: low ad saturation, sparse content, explosive user growth.

Its monthly active users: ~800 million. Daily actives: over 100 million.

Key traffic patterns:

  1. At least 80% of searches come from core keywords and their autocomplete suggestions or “related searches.”
  2. The top two results for any core keyword capture ~80% of all clicks.
  3. WeChat Official Accounts and Mini Programs whose names contain target keywords receive significantly higher ranking weight.

So don’t spam posts. Prioritize precision: identify high-intent core keywords and their natural long-tail variants. Then optimize relentlessly to land in the top two positions for those terms.

Three Tiers of Overseas Revenue

  1. Money-to-Money Arbitrage
    Moving capital across jurisdictions—e.g., routing U.S. consumer payments through compliant structures into target markets. Low friction, high margin.

  2. Human Nature Arbitrage
    Industries built around universal, enduring drives: sex, gambling, and (where legal) substances like cannabis. High demand, regulatory moats, strong margins.

  3. Information & E-commerce Arbitrage
    Cross-border e-commerce, SaaS tools, content localization—visible, noisy, and fiercely competitive. Thin margins. High operational overhead.

Reality check: ~70% of real overseas profits flow through Tiers 1 and 2. Tier 3 dominates headlines—but rarely bottom lines.

Visible rules are always crowded. From this lens, domestic consumers in China remain unusually well-protected—from both market chaos and predatory models.

Toward Greater Objectivity

True objectivity is unattainable. We all interpret reality through inherited frameworks, habits, and blind spots. But we can pursue greater objectivity.

Common distortions include:

  • All-or-nothing thinking
  • Overgeneralization (“always,” “never”)
  • Personalization (“This happened because of me”)
  • Negativity bias (magnifying flaws, ignoring strengths)
  • “Should” thinking (rigid expectations about how things must be)

Scientists offer a useful model:

  • Gather data from multiple sources
  • Generate and test competing hypotheses
  • Actively seek disconfirming evidence
  • Probe causal claims—not just correlations
  • Question sample representativeness

Also worth noting: we routinely mistake inference for fact.
Example: “They didn’t reply → They don’t care.” That’s not observation—it’s a leap.

Practical training tools:

  • Multiple-hypothesis framing: List 3+ plausible explanations before settling on one
  • Evidence auditing: “What concrete data supports this conclusion—and what contradicts it?”
  • Role reversal: Argue against your own view, as if defending the opposite position
  • Proportionality check: “How big is this really, relative to other priorities?”
  • Frame shifting: Ask, “How would someone from [different culture/discipline/generation] see this?”