Phenomenology and Philosophy of Stayer Running (review of Tapio Koski's monograph "Phenomenology and Philosophy of Running. The versatility of long-distance running")

Kannykin Stanislav Vladimirovich PhD in Philosophy Associate professor of the Department of Humanities at Stary Oskol Technological Institute named after A. Ugarov, branch of National University of Science and Technology "MISIS" 309516, Russia, Belgorod Region, Stary Oskol, micro district Makarenko, 42 stvk2007@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Many people who are interested in stayer running note the significant influence of mental states generated by running exercises on their existence, primarily in aspects of self-knowledge and self-realization. Like any kind of physical activity, running allows you to better understand the connection between the body and consciousness, provide a tone that gives joy to life, and also get an existential experience associated with psychological relaxation and tranquility necessary for spiritual growth. This mode of development involves clarifying the personal meaning of fundamental values, taking care and responsibility for both your life and everything around you, improving emotional intelligence, striving for beauty, taming selfishness and blocking attitudes to negative thinking. The basis of these processes is the need for continuous self-knowledge, peace of mind and concentration, as well as the experience of unity with the world. All this becomes possible with the reflexive use of running as a personality-building practice ^[6].

It should be noted that when studying the effect of running on a person, it is important not to limit oneself to its "external" effects related to ensuring bodily well–being and developing skills important for everyday life, such as perseverance, determination, endurance, etc. Philosophical studies of physical practices seek to penetrate deeper than the empirically accessible "ego", namely, to the fundamental foundations of human being, where our ethical way of existence originates. Systematic long–term running is the key to the door behind which the pre-conscious "wisdom of the body" is located, its source is an ontic, direct connection with the world, expressed, for example, in meditative states achieved by a runner ^[3]. The numerous bodily deterministic effects generated by stayer running are a valuable existential experience that profoundly reformats various spheres of being of a personality in its pursuit of fronesis and calocagacy.

The philosophy of running, which began to form in the last third of the last century, is engaged in understanding the humanistic significance of these effects and analyzing their metaphysical potential, the appearance of which is due to the "running boom" of this period and the transformation of amateur stayer running into the most widespread type of physical activity. One of the representatives of this field of knowledge is Tapio Koski (born 1958)? a doctor of philosophy living in Finland and affiliated with the University of Tampere. T. Koski's doctoral dissertation is entitled "Physical exercises as a way of life and a method of spiritual growth using examples from yoga and Zen Buddhism" (2000) ^[11]. His hobbies are martial arts, meditative practices and long–distance running. T. Koski is the first professional philosopher who wrote an individual monograph on the philosophy of running "The philosophy of running: the diversity of endurance running – how to challenge yourself through the flesh" (in Finnish, 2005) ^[12]. In 2015, this monograph in an expanded form was published in English with the title "Phenomenology and philosophy of running. The versatility of long-distance running" ^[13]. This study is a vivid example of the phenomenological description of the diverse experiences of homo currens ("running man"), which is combined with the comprehension of personal experience of participating in stayer races, which ensures the confessional and emotionality of the presentation, as well as the existential validity of the author's conclusions.

T. Koski's monograph continues the philosophical studies of running practices. The first researcher of the philosophical aspects of running can be considered George A. Sheehan, author of the 1978 bestseller "Running and Being: a common experience" ^[15]. Despite the fact that D. Sheehan was a doctor and had no relation to professional philosophy, he approached the study of running activity from a worldview standpoint, analyzing it as a way for a person to gain authenticity and achieve harmony with everything. Then it should be noted the collective monograph "Running and philosophy. Marathon for the Mind" (2007) ^[14], edited by  Michael Austin and included 19 articles (20 authors) concerning various philosophical aspects of amateur running practices. T. Koski repeatedly refers to these works, thereby continuing the tradition, but his monograph does not lose its originality, consisting both in the methodology of research and in solving non-trivial problems.

It is very important to emphasize that D. A. Sheehan, all twenty authors of this collective monograph, and T. Koski himself are experienced runners with experience in overcoming difficult stayer distances. They are not only convinced of the benefits of running exercises for complex human development, but are also practically involved in running life, being an example of the correspondence of personal existence to shared ideas, so appreciated in philosophy. The Finnish scientist notes that "the philosophy of physical exercise based on participation is a new trend in the Western academic environment. Not many philosophers approach the subject of their research from this point of view. This is probably due to the fact that there are only a few researchers who are both philosophers and engaged in the sport they study, and very few who have many years of personal experience of physical exercise. <...> When a person comes into contact with the world with his body, this event occurs on a different level than when consciousness "comes into contact" with concepts" ^{[13, pp. 48-49]}. T. Koski constantly holds the idea that the depth of the impact of running locomotion on the human mind and body can only be understood by being homo currens; when In the "external" view of the runner, his activity is subject to the aberrations of distorted optics of people far from this type of activity. This is how, for example, J. Baudrillard, an alien to running, describes marathon runners: "I would never have thought that the New York marathon could cause tears. This is the spectacle of the end of the world. <...> They run in the pouring rain, under helicopters, to applause, in their aluminum hoods, constantly looking at the chronometer, running half-naked, rolling their eyes, looking for death, death through exhaustion ... <...>. A marathon is a demonstrative form of suicide, a form of its advertising: they run in order to prove that we are able to reach the end of ourselves, to prove... but to prove what? That he is able to walk" ^{[2, pp. 87-88]}. T. Koski quite rightly believes that "a person who has not run long distances, let alone ultra-long distances, cannot understand the experiences that arise when running. He may even deny their existence and consider them to be figments of the imagination, which have nothing to do with the experiences of ordinary people" ^{[13, p. 163]}. Yes, these are exceptional experiences, but they allow us to take a fresh look at issues related to the relationship between body and mind, the depth of human potential or the structures of our experience. That is why T. Koski chooses the phenomenological ("from the inside") the way to comprehend running, formulating my goal in this way: "I will discuss the nature of the experiences caused by long-distance running, how they occur and how to conceptualize and express them" ^{[13, p. 1]}, based on both my own running experience and the personal testimonies of other stayers.

The conceptual basis of the study

The Finnish philosopher considers the organization of an interdisciplinary discussion field for understanding running activities, the conceptualization of running experience, and the analysis of the levels of human existence revealed in running experiences to be the goals of his research. T. Koski's presuppositions are the denial of anthropological dualism, the obligation of personal involvement in running practices and reliance on philosophical concepts that clarify specifically human ways of being (primarily the ideas of M. Heidegger ^[10] and M. Merleau-Ponty ^[9]). T. Koski defines the boundaries of his research as follows: "I will not discuss topics such as doping, problems of competitive sports, its commercialization or gender aspects. I will also not focus on any technical analysis of running, I am interested in the running experience and its significance for a person. I see this value in improving the understanding of my own body as a result of physical exercises, increasing vitality and gaining existential and ethical experience associated with a "running" existence" ^{[13, p. 7]}.

The Finnish philosopher begins the analysis of running experience with a detailed description of the differences between the concepts of "ontic" and "ontological", as well as "reflective" and "reflexive". T. Koski sees ontic relations as arising between the body and the world, they form an individual sensory "experience" and cannot always be adequately expressed in linguistic form, since they represent unique and complex experiences. V. Dilthey ^[4] described the ontic experience as a reflective situation of the absence of differentiation between subject and object, it is a level of direct consciousness that opposes reflexive thinking, expressing reflective experience in concepts or evaluating it, here the ontological is revealed as a condition for the possibility of the ontic.  Physical exercises, and running among them, through repeated repetition and variation create a situation in which the ontic can ascend to the level of the ontological, providing Dasein's breakthrough to authenticity.

But how does the preobjective world produce the meanings that make up the conscious (predicative) understanding of the world through physicality? Our relationship with the world is initially formed on the basis of sensations and perceptions. The body is the undoubted starting point of philosophical anthropology. The bodily organization of people is essentially one, which ensures the unity of preobjective (or pre-subjective) experiences of homo. This is essential, because if a phenomenologist is trying to say something generally meaningful, objective, he is believed to be unable to proceed solely from his personal experiences. "However, we must keep in mind that even if we resorted exclusively to using our own experience as source material, this would not be the result of a completely subjective study. The fact is that every person has a pre-subjective structure in common with everyone, which forms the boundary conditions for any experience. In other words, an individual's experiences cannot be completely unique (i.e. subjective)" ^{[13, p. 51]}. Ultimately, objectivity means what we are able to share, despite the differences between us. Being invariant, objectivity does not disappear in individual differences, but rather presupposes their multiplicity, from which it arises. "Every subjective research is always conducted in the context of the inner world, common to all of us. This fact, as well as the presubjectivity of the body, allow us to achieve generally significant results" ^{[13, p.50]}.

It is important to understand that the body is a part of the world, not an opposition to it. A person does not lock himself in his body, he is an ecstatic being who actively manifests himself in the world, and this activity is initially a bodily property, since the child moves already in the mother's womb without possessing consciousness. M. Merleau–Ponty calls such movement operational intentionality, considering it the first way of mastering the world. Thus, mobility is natural for humans, and the more intense the movement, the more diverse the empirical contacts between man and the world. "For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness is primarily an experience of the functional capabilities of the body, and not some kind of mental activity. Consciousness contains bodily experiences of the world, as they have contributed to its formation. That is why consciousness in relation to human existence in the world has the form not of "I think", but rather of "I can". "I can" exists before "I think" ^{[13, p. 30]}. Thus, it is the body that is the source of consciousness, our "ego" is not transcendent to the body, but is generated by it. It is bodily activity that initially "reveals" the world at the ontic level, and only then this ability is delegated to consciousness, where, due to their ontological differences, it tends to transform. Because of this, "without a bodily understanding of physical exercises, we would not be able to simply use rational thinking and our feelings to form a true idea of various sports and physical exercises" ^{[13, p. 35]}.

Referring to the legacy of M. Heidegger, T. Koski also focuses on the importance of the bodily embodiment of man in terms of understanding the fundamental ontology of the German philosopher. For M. Heidegger, a person's self-discovery, a breakthrough to authenticity is possible on the way to realizing his being as "being-to-death". This creates anxiety from the meaninglessness of existence, allows you to hear the "voice of conscience", realize your guilt for being dissolved in an impersonal being "like everyone else" and take responsibility for taking care of gaining self-determination in life, realizing your unique potential. T. Koski believes that both the human potential itself and the choice of ways to realize it are based on bodily pre-object experience. The true, authentic and therefore ethically correct way of life is revealed ("alethea") to a person as an integral being both at the level of bodily and existential experience. The truth of the right path engulfs a person like a flash of lightning, making not only the soul but also the body tremble. A person who is passionate about the pursuit of authentic existence chooses from the stream of experiences those that correspond to this desire, creating for himself a way of life leading to their maximization. By centering running activity in their lifestyle, the runner essentially becomes an ascetic, and discipline is the basis of behavior. The long-term practice of running turns running from an optional exercise into an integral part of human existence, like eating or sleeping. Thus, running in the context of a lifestyle is understood by T. Koski as a phronesis – according to Aristotle ^[1], it is a principle of life that orients all human activity to achieve good and benefit, practical wisdom, which is the basis of virtue. For M. Heidegger, fronesis is an active interest in the proper organization of one's life, it is the practice of Dasein moving towards achieving authenticity, it is a form of being–in-the-world presence that arose on the basis of care.

How to understand this concern about running? M. Heidegger interprets care as the integrity of human existence, which is ontically rooted and precedes all manifestations of Dasein, being a kind of potential projectivity based on temporality. Time, as we know, has three dimensions, which form the structure of care: the past provides "being-in-the–world" (the conditions of this being are given to us initially); the present is "being-in-the-world-being", and the future foundations "getting ahead of ourselves", providing the projectivity of Dasein. It is important to note that these dimensions of time are interconnected, they seem to permeate each other. The urge to run can be based on the past, present or future, and most often brings together these three time modes, it can be of an ontic nature (bodily urges) or be conceptualized (fulfillment of a training plan) – in any case, its source is concern for movement along the path to its authenticity.

A significant feature of running movement is the rhythmicity and repeatability of movements. M. Heidegger writes that "repetition is an explicit transmission, in other words, a return to the possibilities of the past here-being (Dasein). Actually, the repetition of the possibility of the past – let here-being (Dasein) choose its own heroes for itself – has its existential basis in the determination rushing forward; for it is in it first of all that a choice takes place, which makes it free to continue the struggle and to be faithful to all that needs to be repeated" [Cit. according to: 7]. T. Koski sees in the repeatability of movement the possibility of bodily autonomy: repeated repetition brings actions to automatism, freeing the runner's consciousness from control of locomotion, and the rhythmicity of running allows you to immerse yourself in dynamic meditation, providing access to the highest level of cognition, which Spinoza called intuitive, where there is "... understanding of all things in his in a divine context, in a deep existential sense" ^{[13, p. 88]}.

By dedicating himself to running, a person demonstrates devotion to the chosen path of being. The dangers of devotion are fanaticism and dependence on mental states caused by running and (or) the desire to constantly improve one's results, to new victories over oneself or rivals. T. Koski interprets this attraction as a desire to preserve one's own existence as being-in-relation through running. However, running fanaticism, as a captivity to inauthentic existence, is an obstacle to genesis, upsetting the balance of bodily and spiritual and often leading a person astray from the path of virtue, since he becomes obsessed only with himself and is ready to agree to any price in order to achieve success.

Long-term running activity, according to T. Koski, is able to translate chronos (objective time) into kairos (time of luck, favorable moments for intuitive perception of the truth). M.K. Mamardashvili described Kairos in "Lectures on Proust" as follows: "... we are talking about the time of labor, the sign of which is a second, a fraction of a second, in other words, the space of truth can only be expanded by labor, and in itself it is an instant. And if you missed it ... everything will be chaos and disintegration, nothing will happen again, and the world will go into oblivion, including the endless repetition of hell" ^{[8, p. 18]}. What is the "luckiness" of kairos? It is possible to feel the "call of being" addressed only to you, which "empirically approaches so closely that it becomes existentially and ontologically present" ^{[13, p. 104]}, being perceived by a person in his bodily and spiritual unity. It is a difficult-to-describe fusion of man and the world, a sense of authenticity, an ecstatic feeling of experiencing the openness of being, awareness of oneself as part of infinity. "Getting into kairos," according to J. A. Sheehan, requires a special kind of purification as a precondition: "This purification, it seems to me, should begin with a cleansing discipline, with cleansing efforts. And for me it means running, running a long distance. Running keeps me in peak physical shape and sharpens my senses. It makes me touch, see and hear as if for the first time. Kindness, truth and beauty suddenly take over me. I am surprised by this joy, filled with delight, and I have no choice but to rejoice with tears in my eyes" [Cit. according to: 13, p. 106].

"Empirical cores" as components of the running experience

T. Koski sets himself the goal of isolating from the continuous stream of perceptions associated with running those "which are central, important, significant, essential" ^{[13, p. 107]}. The Finnish philosopher calls these perceptions, which exist in the form of vivid memories, universal cores of experience, or empirical cores. They are extracted by T. Koski from a variety of descriptions of the mental states of different stayers that arise during running (including his own running diary), which ensures (as far as possible) the objectivity of understanding these "cores", which include:

1. The disappearance of the opposition of subject and object: this is a kind of fusion of the runner and the world, in which "the ego is reduced without consciously produced reduction" ^{[13, p. 119]}, but only due to a long, rhythmic and comfortable pace of running locomotion, when it seems that running is carried out by itself, without conscious effort. Thus, here we are not talking about the traditional epoch, but about the "existential-ontological epoch". "After the emergence of existential-ontological reduction, only consciousness remains, which is not egological in nature (sometimes it is an ecstatic existential experience of unity, sometimes not). When the subject-object attitude is eliminated, we can feel the initial closeness between us and reality" ^{[13, p. 121]}.

2. Pacification. The above intimacy leads to a calming of the mind, which gives rise to a feeling of peace, the world appears to us in silence and serenity. T. Koski describes the significance of this state metaphorically: when the surface of the pond becomes motionless, without ripples, we can see its bottom. During the "automatic" running locomotion, the senses transmit (in accordance with their ecstatic nature) to the mind the experience of the silence of the world, which thus calms down, which provides it with the opportunity to hear the "call of being", to get to the ontological foundations of human existence. Being does not speak to a person with the help of concepts, therefore it is impossible for consciousness with the "mind turned on" to hear it. "On the other hand, the call penetrates into the human being so deeply that it is impossible not to hear it. The power of the call is so great that it will inevitably be experienced and consciously noticed" ^{[13, p. 122]}. T. Koski emphasizes that when we run in a state of peace, we do not try to control or use the world in any way. "In Heidegger's terms, this is called "letting being be what it is" <...>. In this situation, there is a chance to see being as it is, and not as we want or imagine it to be. When this happens, it will concern the individual's "existential understanding of being" as an empirical event of a living body. In other words, the contradiction between subject and object is overcome by eliminating ego consciousness. Something deeper than ordinary consciousness will arise" ^{[13, p.122]}.

3. Mood. T. Koski substantiates this "core" on the basis of the distinction between two Heidegger concepts: state of mind and mood. If the first is focused on discovering an authentic self in the world, then the second ensures the intensity of the experiences of one's existence at the ontic, pre-ontological level. At the same time, the state of mind is primary, it seems to "turn on" (in the sense of activating) mood as the lowest register of understanding, as tone. T. Koski connects mood with physicality, noting that in the act of understanding the world, mood and state of mind act together, forming a common psychophysical state of a person. Due to the mood, the runner's mind acts more sharply and actively, "compared to the normal state, this is an energetic and cheerful state, and it seems that he (runner – S.K.) additional antennas have appeared for the perception of touching oneself and the world around us" ^{[13, p. 124]}. The mood is opposed by indifference, which M. Heidegger describes as the absence of striving for anything that is not set by the agenda of everyday life: "just to live on ? in such a way as to "allow" everything to "be" as it is ? is based on forgetting and giving oneself to one's abandonment. This has the ecstatic meaning of an inauthentic way of being" ^{[13, p. 139]}.  Mood, on the other hand, sharpens the senses, opens up the deeper dimensions of everyday life and persists as a state of active striving for authenticity for some time after the end of the run, which allows the runner to experience a long-term emotional uplift.

4. Full presence in the present. It can be understood using a fashionable expression from modern popular psychology: "to be in the moment," which means to completely immerse yourself in the present, without worrying about the future and not tormented by memories. The life of a modern person is about deadlines and regrets about missed opportunities. "This anxiety cannot be easily overcome with rational intention, because a restless lifestyle creates a kind of psychophysical structure that, for example, shapes our lifestyle. The existential experience of being present, which becomes real when running long distances, can help break this negative spiral, because it rebuilds the structures of understanding being" ^{[13, p. 125]}. Full presence in the present is an intense experience based on a person's complete (bodily and spiritual) openness to the world, it is a sense of time in which there is no difference between its dimensions. "It is a complete abundance of being that unites the past and the future in the present moment. Although this experience is accompanied by a kind of sense of time, it paradoxically emphasizes timelessness" ^{[13, p. 125]}. The feeling of full presence in the present, achieved by prolonged running, is a kind of familiarization of the runner with eternity as the antipode of time, its short-term opening for a Dasein totally burdened by temporality.

5. A sense of the power of life. The running experience of one's own life force comes into some contradiction with the existential "being-to-death", which is especially important for M. Heidegger, providing a path to authenticity. T. Koski suggests for discussion as an existential the life force, which can be defined as "... the ability of every living being to make changes in their own existence and the world around them. On the other hand, it is an inner experience of all of the above" ^{[13, p. 127]}. T. Koski defines power as an experience as an "inner energy immensity", calling it "being-towards-life". Unlike the purely ontological "being-to-death", the life force is given to us in experience, it is both an ontic (empirical) and ontological property of a specific way of being Dasein. The Finnish philosopher describes the life force as providing the individual's ability to be whole, to fully experience his existence, to realize his potential. T. Koski supports the view that the shape and size of the body (with the exception of some pathological cases) are signs of the inner order (or disorder) of the individual. "This sign is intended both for yourself and for others. For others, as I understand it, it means the aesthetic habit of the body, how the body looks and how a person "wears his own body." If a person had a great desire to strengthen and "enlarge" his own body, then, having achieved the goal, he may feel like "the embodiment of his own strength" ^{[13, p. 128]}. Another "habitus" of strength is the degree of vitality of an individual, the amount of energy that is visible in all human actions, which is especially inherent in stayers. "For example, long-distance runners with their thin bodies and faces can give the impression of "exhausted" athletes: hollow cheeks and eyes, but at the same time they emit an intense light of internal energy" ^{[13, p. 128]}. The feeling of vitality as an overflowing human energy, the constant desire for action is an uplifting feeling for a person, because it makes life more intense. Amateur athletes who have mastered the marathon distance begin to understand the significance of their life force resource, which moves them to goals that they would never have dared to achieve before the finish line at the marathon.

6. T. Koski describes the joy of running in four lines, characterizing it as "benevolent bubbling happiness" and explaining as follows: "It's like someone's mind in a state of euphoria gently floated on a mattress consisting of cheerful bubbles" ^{[13, p.129]}.

7. Devotion and gratitude: "For a runner, gratitude for his existence and the feeling of being in general can be so strong, and existence can be experienced as something so precious and solemn that it causes the need to thank something or someone for it (even if we, not having faith in a personal God, think, that there is no one to thank)" ^{[13, p.129]}. T. Koski considers forgiveness to be a kind of devotion and gratitude, the object of which is any person with whom there is a conflict relationship. At the same time, the release from anger while running is not caused by conscious effort, "rather, it happens by itself when some kind of entity awakens in the runner or a process is carried out that leads to this event. The runner's mind is filled with a feeling of forgiveness, which resembles love for one's neighbor, free from thoughts of guilt. The emotional state is cleared, after which you can start from scratch on your behalf" ^{[13, p.130]}. Emotions of devotion and gratitude to someone or something weaken the human ego, as if a person partially renounces himself, or rather, the worst in himself, extinguishes the source of negative emotions, frees himself from its destructive influence with the help of forgiveness.

8. The true self, enlightenment, is absolute. Achieving the above or coming into contact with it is a mystical event that is interpreted differently in various religious and philosophical traditions. T. Koski understands mysticism in this context not as contact with the supernatural, but as a rare experience of revealing "fundamental reality", the experiences of which are independent of cultural differences and inaccessible to conceptualization. It is important for him to emphasize that if something is transcendent to our ability to understand, then it is not necessarily transcendent to experience, even if it is peculiar. In philosophical terms, the essence of what is happening is expressed in the experience of the unity of being and existence, in which being is perceived as a whole. For example, in yoga practicing bodily exercises, this experience is interpreted as referring to the process of liberation (nirvana). The effects of body and consciousness generated by running allow you to go beyond everyday existence and sometimes provide states, using the concepts of yoga, a "spiritual person".

Concluding the analysis of the "empirical cores", T. Koski draws attention to the fact that these are the central factors by which other events in the runner's life world are determined and their significance is given. "A runner who has discovered a more positive attitude towards life or something in his true inner identity will face an improvement in the quality of life, and adversity will not shake him as much as before" ^{[13, p. 133]}. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that running, like any other physical exercise, is not a "magic trick" that instantly or automatically brings comfortable well-being and peace of mind. If, for example, a person is deeply depressed, then he should not run "for a good mood", but first of all seek medical help.

 Going beyond the mind and the wisdom of the body

T. Koski believes (based on both personal experience and many testimonies from amateur runners) that one of the most significant advantages of running is its ability to provide meditative states in which a person comes into contact with non-conceptual ontic reality. At the same time, the runner does not make any special efforts: by "calming" his mind, he gives the world the opportunity to reveal himself through homo currents. Traditionally, it is believed that the development of the skill of immersion in meditative states is associated with the spiritual growth of a person who is able to "restart" consciousness from a kind of neutral zero state, freed from the burden of "negativity". "In this situation, the natural, innate wisdom of a conscious event realizes itself. Initially, that is, simply as a result of the work of the neural structure, negativity does not belong to consciousness. Instead, there is only a neutral reflection of reality in the form of experienced meanings. Negativity is a burden that has accumulated in us over the years of individual evolution. When we manage to get rid of this, and this is repeated repeatedly with the help of meditation, there is a place in our consciousness for a free, creative space that is no longer controlled by any prior obligations" ^{[13, p. 136]}. Replacing unfavorable experiences with neutral or positive mental relationships with reality indicates strengthening the connection between man and the world, improving vitality and spiritual growth, it is not for nothing that the goals of meditative thinking relied on the good transcendental, tao, being, one, atman, Brahman, God, etc. T. Koski emphasizes that the experience through meditation is carried out by a holistic person, and not only on the basis of rational structures. At the same time, the experience thus turns into a person's "own flesh", becoming noticeable in all spheres of personal life. For many runners, transforming themselves through meditative states is the main goal of running exercises, their intentional correlate. At the same time, the longer the distance run, the more chances there are for a meditative state, being revealed by Dasein in action. T. Koski repeatedly emphasizes that in many traditions focused on achieving authenticity, a methodical, repeatedly performed exercise that unites spirit and body occupies a central place. "In the Zen tradition, for example, the emphasis is on lifelong exercises, regardless of whether you are a beginner or a master. <...> The reason for this is that "ordinary life" makes constant attempts to bring a person back to the trivial, boring insignificance of gray everyday life" ^{[13, p. 139]}. The motivation for this action is Heideggerian anxiety, concern about one's inauthenticity, a response to the "call of conscience". In a state of anxiety, a person, according to Heidegger, feels ("U)ncanniness", which, among other things, means "not-being-at-home". By "rebooting" himself in meditation, the runner blocks the feeling of anxiety and thereby "returns home".

Analyzing Heidegger's concept of "the call of conscience", T. Koski preliminarily notes that one of the reasons for the passion for long-distance running is that with its help we can comprehend the deep dimensions of our essence, thanks to which we can hear the "call of conscience", or "the call of being", calling us to live in accordance with our authenticity. Dasein initially contains the potentiality to be oneself, but it must be identified, witnessed, and it does not exist under our conscious control. The tragedy for Dasein is the lack of the opportunity to truly live his life - and this means the situation of an unheard "call of conscience". It is important to note that the experience of this call comes from the body as a pre-subjective ontological structure. According to the Finnish philosopher, our ontological structure contains the need for integrity, which is achieved by the activity of the individual. "If our being is incomplete, it can manifest and be experienced as an indefinite anxiety and disorder of being. It is to this becoming a whole, to be one in our existence, that conscience calls us" ^{[13, p. 141]}. T. Koski believes that a person's existential choice lies in what to listen to: to the voice of his conscience, which comes from the depths of the "I", or to the "public and the empty chatter" produced by "them" (das Man).

The ability to hear oneself lies on the path of self-knowledge. During a long run, due to the significant and specific (monotonous rhythmic movements) load on the body, we are in a different relationship with the world than in our daily lives. This opens a channel for non-symbolic communication with the world, providing a transition from ordinary thinking to meditative, in the process of which calmness is born, generated by the expansion of the sphere of contact between the body and the world. The property of this interaction is "a grateful existence in which there are no special conscious demands on the world and oneself, and in which they are not interpreted and analyzed using conceptual thinking" ^{[13, p. 148]}. The meditative aspect of running involves focusing on oneself, turning off the "voices" of an alien world, and in this inner silence, the "call of conscience" has a chance to break through to us. This "call" is non-verbal, it is a kind of intuitive epiphany. Its quality is noetic: we are able to understand this experience, but we cannot objectively objectify it in a linguistic form: "... each Dasein <...> has the ability to interpret the call in a peculiar way. Although it is ambiguous in this sense, in some fundamental sense the call is the same for all people. How the path pointing to the true self is determined on the basis of the call depends on each individual ego" ^{[13, p. 142]}. We can say that our original ego, based on the "call of conscience", receives an indication of the path leading to the authentic self. T. Koski emphasizes that the source of the "call" is not something divine, transcendent to the world. This appeals to us "the hidden potential of spiritual growth and awakening inherent in every human being" ^{[13, p.144]}.

It is important to emphasize that in running activities (as in any other training process), a person receives two types of results: planned (for example, winning a race) and "bonus" ones, the existence of which the runner may not have guessed, for example, these are diverse and not always clearly understood effects of running on personality. In this regard, T. Koski believes it is possible to consider running activity as an active-passive (conscious-unconscious) process. Referring to Eastern practices, he writes: "This means that a person must consciously tune into the situation with the exercise, and this consciousness should guide him. On the other hand, the exercise should be unconscious in the sense that the exercise is an attempt to achieve an empty conscious state in which the ego does not dominate. <...> In connection with running, I discuss the same thing (consciously-unconscious or unconsciously conscious), using the term active-passive process. I repeat in this context, what is active in running ? This is what makes us run. Passive is everything that can happen or manifest itself when the mind calms down and relaxes" ^{[13, p. 151]}. The "passive" component of running is primarily its spiritual "gifts", like the activation of creative abilities, which cannot be planned, but can only be humbly "expected" (quotes are related to the fact that it happens unconsciously). T. Koski believes that these gifts become possible with the running deconstruction of the ego, as a result of which the authentic self is released. In this regard, it becomes clear why these "gifts" do not come as often as we would like, and probably not to every (especially novice) runner. The ego-self is the product of a person's entire past life history. As a conscious structure, it is aimed at preventing its disintegration and reorganization, since a person identifies with it, he usually has more desire to "accept himself as he is" than to transform the ego. To initiate the deconstruction of the ego, it requires the rejection of the impersonal ("like everyone else") T. Koski warns us against the idea that runners are athletes who have consciously embarked on the path of superman. No, people consciously ("actively") start running for quite prosaic reasons, but when running becomes a significant part of a lifestyle, it often brings "gifts" that put us on the path of authenticity, acquires a deep meaning. The active-passive process is a kind of motivation of being to answer (in our case, with the help of running exercises), in which, after active questioning, there is essentially a passive expectation of an answer ("the passive part of the exercise is just "waiting" ^{[13, p. 154]}), which you may not hear that it means the need for even better running "tuning" of one's antennas (as a means of achieving greater bodily and spiritual unity) in order to reveal the existential-ontological dimension of being. With the help of running, a person puts himself in a state of increased responsiveness to the "call of conscience", but waiting for this call can be long and difficult (the Buddhist monks already mentioned run about 40,000 kilometers for "enlightenment" for 7 years ^[5]). T. Koski believes that the ability to achieve peace during long-term running practices and thereby harmonize relations with the world is an anthropological constant, a natural gift. And only the pacification generated by running (in sports psychology, this is often described as "flow") makes possible the passive component of the process under consideration.

Summing up his phenomenological analysis of the running experience, T. Koski argues that the fundamental "something" revealed in the active-passive process is beyond the reach of the "pure" (i.e., not taking into account physicality) mind and speech: "... as the early poets, apostles and philosophers said, life cannot be explained only by logic and common sense. Long-distance runners know this instinctively. They know about other things too: they have a connection that those who don't exercise have lost. They understand, perhaps better than anyone else, that the doors to the spiritual world open with physical exertion. Running long and difficult distances, long-distance runners respond to the call that comes from the depths of our existence and asks who we really are" ^{[13, p. 163]}. In this regard, the Finnish philosopher interprets peak running experiences as ethically loaded, since they act as internal indicators guiding a person's life to authentic existence according to the "wisdom of the heart", which can be considered as a kind of bodily gnosis.

 Conclusions

1. T. Koski considers the following to be the main issue of his research: how, with the help of stayer running, a person can explore and realize his existential potentials, making his way to the authentic "I", an important property of which is the integrity achieved by combining the efforts of body and spirit in the crucible of running activity.

2. The object of the Finnish philosopher's study is the experiences arising from systematic stayer running, described on the basis of the phenomenology of the body by M. Merleau-Ponty and the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger, as well as some concepts of Eastern philosophy aimed at achieving the bodily and spiritual integrity of a person.    

3. T. Koski justifies the importance of running experiences for a person by the fact that they improve the quality of life and make it more saturated, changing attitudes to the world and opening up to a person through prolonged bodily tension and the development of a special kind of sensitivity some aspects of his being that are not presented to the "pure", "out-of-body" consciousness and do not have an unambiguous conceptual and a linguistic expression.

4. Systematic stayer running opens the way for a person to special elements of experience ("empirical cores"), on the basis of which she can realize her unique potential (elimination of conflict between subject and object; pacification; mood; full presence in the present; a sense of the power of life; joy; devotion and gratitude; true self, enlightenment, the absolute).  Other experiences are organized around these "cores" that guide a person's life towards authenticity and harmony with the world, on their basis the social existence of the individual is realized, which is why T. Koski considers them to have an ethical nature.

5. Through running actualization, the "empirical cores" bring peace to our lives, through which we can hear the "call of conscience" addressed to us and intuitively perceived, directing Dasein on his own path of life.

6. T. Koski sees the importance of his research in practical terms in drawing attention to running activities, activating the study of the cultural content of running practices, in substantiating the metaphysical content of stayer running, which can help to comprehend homo currens existentially significant experiences and better understand the goals of his existence.