You can use Walking Meditation as an integral part of your meditation life. What is Walking Meditation?
First, remember the key component to mediation is rhythm. Creating a rhythm with your breath, whether it’s with a mantra, a prayer word, following of your breath, it’s just creating a rhythm with your breath. As you create that rhythm what you will find is a peace, a “quietude” enters you because you lose that phonetic mind. That phonetic mind has kept you restless and in a sense agitated you. What meditation does is give you a reprieve, a time of rest, a time of relaxing the mind, rejuvenating the mind and healing the mind while quieting the mind. Most of us, when we think of meditation think of sitting in the lotus position with our eyes closed. There is another form of meditation called Walking Meditation that is also very wonderful, very relaxing and something you can do any time, anywhere.
Basically, Walking Mediation has several components. First you want to find someplace you can walk undisturbed, undistracted. You want to be in a place where you won’t be disturbed by others because you will be walking very slowly. If you are walking around other people you may be distracted by them, worrying about what they are thinking as you’re walking so slowly. You never want to be in a place where you are distracted with being self conscious about what others may say or think as you are meditating.
Once you find a place to walk, start walking. Instead of walking normally, you walk with your steps correlating with your breathing. As you breathe in, you step up… breathe out, step down… breathe in, step up… breathe out, step down. You steadily do this, having your walking go along with your breath. Walk at a pace so that as you take each step, you are taking a step as you breathe. As you move you will be able to find that meditative state where your mind can become calm, even though you are moving. The key is to just focus on your breath as it relates to your walking; or have your walking relate to your breath. As with regular meditation, thoughts will come, concerns, and worries but what you do is just go back to concentrating on the walking and the breathing. Follow your breath. Make it so that your only thought is that walking and breathing rhythm.
You may be wondering what you should do with your eyes as you are walking. You simply look down at your feet; slowly watch your feet as you move them to correlate to your breath. If you are in a public place where you cannot correlate a slow walk you can correlate 2 steps with each breath, making your walking a little faster. Have your eyes focused a little bit in front of you, gazing so you can see where you are going. As you breathe in take two steps. You will find that this technique comes in handy in places like airports and shopping malls where there are throngs of people around you. It can instantly take the stresses away as you release them with each breath in and each step you take.
This type of meditation is a way of finding time to meditate even while being active. So often we think of meditation as something we do while sitting, being inactive. The Walking Meditation technique allows you to experience the easing of your mind and stresses as you ease in to a state of meditation. This is a great addition to your sitting meditation. It adds variety to your meditation techniques and sometimes your body just doesn’t feel like sitting quietly. The Walking Meditation allows you to move around while allowing yourself to meditate. I encourage you to try meditation while walking and you will find that meditation can truly be a wonderful experience, even while on the move.
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Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D. is a meditation expert, international speaker and the creator of the weekly Meditation For Health Podcast, available at http://www.MeditationForHealthPodcast.com He also creates a weekly podcast that explores the world of Enlightenment available at http://www.EnlightenmentPodcast.com If you would like to contact Dr. Puff, his e-mail address is DrPuff@cox.net
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