Stage One walking meditation is straightforward and uncomplicated.
- To begin, it's all about exploring the current moment, as it was in Step One of the shift.
- As you walk, you allow your attention to wander freely while keeping your awareness open.
- The only constraint is that you must be completely in the moment, in the here and now.
- However, at the conclusion of this Stage, your attention will be completely focused on the sensations of walking, just as it was with Step Four of the breath transition.
WALKING EXPLORATION
- You must initially try with different walking speeds while carefully noting their differences before beginning the official walking exercise.
- Begin by walking at a slow, steady speed.
- Take note of how automated the process is, requiring very little effort.
- The mind may travel anywhere it wants.
- You'll notice a variety of things in your surroundings at first, but you'll soon get engrossed in thoughts and recollections that pull you away from the present.
- Simply draw your attention back to the present now by concentrating on the sensations in your feet when your mind wanders.
- Keep your focus on your feet for the next few steps to assist you remain in the present moment.
- Notice how this is similar to sitting meditation in that you may be aware of everything around you—sights, sounds, and other sensations—while maintaining your focus on your feet.
- As you walk at a regular speed, remove your focus from the feet and allow them to continue exploring the present.
- Then, as though you were in a rush to go someplace, accelerate.
- You'll notice that you have to pay more attention to direction, hazards, and footing at first, but that peripheral awareness soon takes over.
- You'll quickly find yourself thinking about things that have nothing to do with where you are or what you're doing, and you may even forget that you're meant to be meditating.
- It's far more difficult to stay in the moment by paying attention to the feelings in your feet: they're much too fleeting and variable to act as a reliable anchor.
- When walking rapidly, however, the entire action of walking—arms swinging, legs moving, torso rotating, and so on—works much better as an anchor for attention.
You just need to practice fast-walking meditation for a short time to understand the various impacts it has on the way attention and awareness function together, as well as your capacity to remain in the present moment.
- Finally, move extremely slowly, as if you're trying to hide. Take note of the lack of fluid movement and how almost every aspect of the process requires careful attention and control.
- Walking slowly not only helps you stay in the moment, but it also naturally directs your focus to your feet; if your attention wanders for even a few seconds, wobbling, instability, and loss of balance will rapidly bring you back to the present.
- Again, you're simply trying to get a sense of how speed affects your attention, awareness, and capacity to remain in the moment.
- This information will be extremely helpful at various stages of walking practice, enabling you to modify your pace for various reasons.
- Most people will find that one or two sessions of playing with various speeds is sufficient, but feel free to keep going as long as you're learning anything.
THE ACTIVITIES
- Choose a comfortable speed to begin your formal practice, one that is slow enough to see changes in the soles of your feet but quick enough to be largely automatic—what you could call "slow normal."
- As you walk, pay more attention to the sensations in your feet.
- They'll ultimately become your main meditation object, but for now, don't focus only on them.
- For the time being, your major goal is to walk in the present moment.
- This means you may shift your focus from your feet to whatever is going on around you at the time.
- However, they must always be deliberate attention shifts!
- There will be noises, fascinating and appealing visual things, even smells if you are outdoors.
- Allow your thoughts to investigate and notice them on purpose.
- Feel the sun on your face, the shadow on your back, and the wind on your face.
- Investigate and participate completely in these activities, absorbing everything in.
- Return to the feelings in your feet whenever an object of concentration fades or becomes uninteresting.
Stay in the present moment at all times.
- Explore and completely experience your environment with both concentration and awareness, but don't get caught up in your thoughts, which will pull you out of the present.
- To keep such ideas at bay, return your focus back to the sensations in your feet or legs whenever you notice your mind has wandered.
- As the novelty of slow walking wears off, your thoughts will become more frequent, and you'll have to focus more on your feet. This is very typical behavior.
- You'll ultimately be focusing your attention on the sensations of walking more or less constantly.
- You'll learn how to notice ideas in peripheral awareness while learning to prevent your attention from being grabbed.
- Return to the present by concentrating your attention on walking when you notice you've been thinking or remembering, but allow the idea or memory to continue to develop in the background of peripheral awareness.
You are not in the present when your mind is occupied with thinking or remembering.
- Peripheral awareness of ideas or memories, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable since it is the same as peripheral awareness of sights, sounds, or feelings.
- It's part of present-moment awareness to be conscious that you're recalling something, in the sense that you're aware of a memory coming up in the background.
- Being completely present also includes being aware that discursive ideas are arising in the background, or even being aware that you were engaged with such thoughts only a minute ago.
- You may watch thinking or remembering processes, let them continue in the background, and eventually let them proceed on their own with practice—all without ever leaving the present.
Walking while remaining in the present cultivates the same mental skills as sitting and paying attention to the breath.
- You're consciously focusing your attention on something interesting that comes up in front of you, or to the sensations in your feet.
- You're also always practicing peripheral awareness by being aware of everything around you.
- You're practicing introspective awareness whenever you notice your focus has wandered away from the current moment.
- You may also practice mindfulness while walking by utilizing focused and sustained attention in combination with peripheral awareness.
- The walking meditation described above should be enjoyable, soothing, and simple.
- The relaxed quality of walking provides a valuable antidote to excessive striving, keeping your practice in balance.
Sitting practice can easily become too goal-oriented and intense, so the relaxed quality of walking provides a valuable antidote to excessive striving, keeping your practice in balance.
- Keep in mind that emotions of pleasure and contentment are necessary for long-term motivation.
- As a result, combining your sitting practice with at least half an hour of walking meditation each day is the greatest approach to support and strengthen it.
