Bringing Ourselves Back Into Body-Mind Awareness

How about making the walking we already do into an opportunity to meditate? In walking meditation, we use the experience of walking as our focus, a technique that can be just an effective as sitting practice. It can be utilized as a break between our periods spent on a cushion or chair, or as a useful alternative when sitting still is difficult. It is also a wonderful way to integrate mindfulness into daily life via “mini-movement meditations”, quickly bringing ourselves back into body-mind awareness. Even walking from the car into a store or office can be an opportunity for a minute or two of mindful walking.

How to Do It

As a formal practice, walk slowly but naturally. Do your best to notice as much as possible the sensation of each foot as it moves. See if you can break the movements into its various parts and note them individually. Notice lifting, extending, lowering, touching. Notice how each sensation feels in your body. Is the movement smooth, or jerky? Is there a beginning, middle and end to each step? You might make a mental note of each movement saying silently to yourself, “Lifting, extending, lowering, touching”. See if you can sustain an unbroken awareness, perhaps coordinating your breath with each step, breathing in and out as you move.

Awareness in Ordinary Life

Walking meditation is meditation in action. When doing walking meditation, we are using the physical, mental, and emotional experiences of walking as the basis of developing greater self-awareness.

Walking meditation is a wonderful and practical way of developing our ability to bring awareness into ordinary life. Any able-bodied person under normal circumstances does some walking every day, even if it is merely strolling from the house to the mailbox and back. Walking meditation is an excellent way to squeeze more mindfulness practice into our activities since we do it so frequently. As the Zen expression goes, “How we do anything, is how we do everything.”  Once we have learned walking meditation, all our moving about, however brief, becomes meditation.