The Japanese Tradition

That morning I ran about six miles. During the run at least twenty other runners I encountered along the way bowed to me in the traditional Japanese manner. Ten or twelve times I also bowed to them. But after that it was too much for me. When they bowed I would just raise my hand to salute them.
 
Then, when I was really tired, I saw an old lady about sixty years old running. She bowed down, and in her case I felt that I had to bow down also.
 
-1 November 1979 
 

 
[Source: "The Japanese Tradition" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 2, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1979.]