So,
Walking meditation.
If you practice walking meditation,
Walking extremely slowly or very fast,
Walking meditation has been a natural staple as a diet of all Buddhist practitioners since the time of the Buddha.
Buddha spent a lot of time in walking meditation,
Carrying his ball on his arms around and back.
Ajahn Chah in the book Forest Recollection writes very beautifully about that practice.
Sometimes maybe you go walk for an hour to a village in silence,
In the forest maybe,
And then with your ball and then you go for your arms around,
You collect arms and then you go back with your food,
Maybe anticipating eating,
Maybe you're hungry,
And you're just there walking.
And in monasteries throughout time,
Walking meditation has been used to prolong the meditation period without building up necessary pain and discomfort and even damage to your legs.
And therefore people use it for different purposes.
Sometimes it could be really to cultivate mindfulness and this subtlety of energy that I was talking about earlier,
And that we'll be practicing a bit later.
And sometimes it's used as exercise,
To rouse energy,
Because when you really sit a lot,
You can become a little dull and sleepy,
And sloth might just build,
And so you might use walking meditation to counter that.
So again,
Like Maharaj was speaking earlier,
You have to find out what you need.
And so also when we have walking meditation here,
Find out what you need.
And if you're in doubt,
I suggest you do the practice that the Buddha often did in India.
I'm not sure if it's Harnath or exactly where it is,
But someone's built this brick platform of about 10 meters,
Where there's a stretch where the Buddha used to go up and down.
And so there is this little platform.
Oh yeah,
That's where he went up and down and up and down.
And there's a beautiful purposelessness of that walking.
It really doesn't matter how many times you walk up and down those 10 meters.
It's how you do it.
Yeah,
So one way when I walk slowly is that I.
.
.
And I like to coordinate with my breath,
But that's just,
That might suit some of you,
It might frustrate some of you.
So when I do it,
I breathe in as I lift my foot,
And then breathe out as my heel touches the ground.
And then I breathe out,
And with the breath,
Pulling my hind leg up and then letting it gently go down as I breathe out.
And it's the breathing that sets the pace,
Ideally not the foot.
And so sometimes I could take a longer step,
And sometimes a shorter step.
And if it's raining,
We'll be walking in a circle in the shrine room,
And you can adjust the space between the person in front by how long you take the step.
Even if it's one centimeter,
It doesn't matter.
You just keep on with the walking.
And so that's one aspect of it.
And then there's the,
You know,
Paying attention.
So like in the first tetrad,
We're really paying attention to the breathing.
Now is a good opportunity to pay attention to this part of your body.
You know,
When we're practicing Aikido,
We used to really just give it a bit of massage and really care for it because,
You know,
It really carries us.
You know,
It's what we step on throughout our lives.
So really enjoy it and pay attention to how does it feel when it touches the ground.
And of course here,
When the soft,
Moist grass,
It's delightful.
And then suddenly,
Ah,
There's a little stone.
And it's painful.
And really just acknowledge that.
You know,
Don't push it away.
And recognize,
Do you then move your foot straight away or can you tolerate the pain?
Just,
No right or wrong.
Just pay attention.
And then whatever else you're walking on the wooden floor or if there's gravel or wooden,
Whatever you are,
Just pay attention to how does it feel.
And so my main focus when I'm walking is that of my feet,
That touch,
And my breath,
And then the whole of the body that follows.
And there's this swaying,
You know,
Side to side.
And so just like noticing,
It's a bit like a dance.
See,
I love watching people dance.
Sometimes they're creative,
But sometimes they're just gentle.
And so just noticing your own dance as you're walking.
That's slow walking.
And of course,
When you're walking fast,
It might be difficult to coordinate with your breathing.
You just walk fast.
But the thing is,
Really stay in touch with your feet on the ground and your body.
And then,
Of course,
You have to pay more attention to where you're going through,
If you're going through the forest and whatnot.
So I was thinking now,
We'll do a session of walking meditation.
And I invite you to first start off really slow,
Like I said.
And so after about 10 minutes,
I'll ring the bell.
And I invite you to try another pace.
So you can walk really,
Really fast,
Or even slower,
Or,
You know,
Whatever.
And just to experiment.
And so throughout this week,
You know,
Also experiment.
You know,
Find a good way for you to do walking meditation.
And do take this experimentation with you,
As I mentioned earlier.
So walking to work or back from work,
You know,
There are excellent bardo stages,
You know,
Transition stages,
When you can let go of what you've done at work,
Say,
Before you go home.
Or when you let go of the morning,
Whatever happened,
Before ready to go to work or meeting a friend or whatever it is.
