How to convert "Morning walk" into "walking meditation"?

[happylotus1]

These are the five rewards for one who practices walking meditation. Which five? He can endure traveling by foot; he can endure exertion; he becomes free from disease; whatever he has eaten & drunk, chewed & savored, becomes well-digested; the concentration he wins while doing walking meditation lasts for a long time.

Today during my morning walk session, I thought about the possibility of converting morning walk session into "walking meditation". I was wondering how can we make these morning walk sessions into walking meditation. Do we really need to walk slow to practice walking meditation? What addition and removal are necessary to make morning walk into walking meditation? I would much appreciate input from practitioner who have experiences with walking meditation.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Walking slowly helps, but it's not essential. A quiet place, far from the madding crowd, helps a lot too.

The important point is for the mind to be inwardly focused, not drawn out to external sense objects. Go with the eyes downcast, not looking around here and there for interesting things to see, but focus just a plough's length ahead (two or three metres) just so as to avoid obstacles and dangers.

Having seen an object with the eye, just note it as "Seeing, seeing," not taking note of it's specific details, but just knowing it as a visible object. Having heard a sound, just note it as "Hearing hearing," just knowing it as a sound, etc.

Pay attention to the breathing and the movements of the limbs, the sensations of touch on the ground, and the feelings of cold or hot on the limbs.

[happylotus1]

Thank you Venerable Bhikkhu Pesala.

[gavesako]

These are the five rewards for one who practices walking meditation. Which five?
[1] He can endure traveling by foot;
[Addhānakkhamo hoti]
[2] He can endure exertion;
[Padhānakkhamo hoti]
[3] He has little disease;
[Appābādho hoti].
[4] Whatever he has eaten & drunk, chewed & savored, becomes well-digested;
[Asitapītakhāyitasāyitaṃ sammā parināmaṃ gacchati].
[5] The concentration he wins while doing walking meditation lasts for a long time.
[Caṅkamādhigato samādhi ciraṭṭhitiko hoti].
These are the five rewards for one who practices walking meditation.
[pañca caṅkame ānisaṃsāti.]



(7) "Are you nodding, Moggallana?
"But if by doing this you don't shake off your drowsiness, then — percipient of what lies in front & behind — set a distance to meditate walking back & forth, your senses inwardly immersed, your mind not straying outwards. It's possible that by doing this you will shake off your drowsiness.

Capalāyasi no tvaṃ moggallāna
No ce te evaṃ viharato taṃ middhaṃ pahīyetha, tato tvaṃ moggallāna, pacchāpuresaññi caṅkamaṃ adhiṭṭheyyāsi antogatehi indriyehi abahigatena mānasena. Ṭhānaṃ kho panetaṃ vijjati yaṃ te evaṃ viharato taṃ middhaṃ pahīyetha.



Ajahn Jayasaro:

What is the purpose of walking meditation and how is it practiced?

Walking meditation provides both a supplement and an alternative to sitting meditation. Some meditators prefer it to sitting and may make it their main practice. Walking meditation is a particularly useful option when illness, tiredness or a full stomach make sitting meditation too difficult. Whereas in sitting meditation mindfulness is developed in stillness, in walking meditation it is developed in movement. Practicing walking meditation in combination with sitting thus helps the meditator to develop a flexible all-round awareness that can be more easily integrated into daily life than that which is developed by sitting meditation alone. As an added bonus, walking meditation is good exercise.

To practice walking meditation, a path of some 20-30 paces long is determined, with a mark placed at the mid-point. Meditators begin by standing at one end of the path with hands clasped in front of them. Then they begin walking along the path to its other end, where they stop briefly, before turning around and walking back to where they started. After another brief halt, they repeat this, walking back and forth along the path in this way for the duration of the walking meditation session. Meditators use the beginning, the end and the mid-point of the path as check-points to ensure that they have not become distracted. The speed at which meditators walk varies according to the style of meditation being practiced and to individual preference.

In the initial effort to transcend the five hindrances to meditation a variety of methods may be employed. One popular method, similar to that mentioned in the discussion of sitting meditation, is to use a two-syllable meditation word (mantra): right foot touching the ground mentally reciting the first syllable; left foot touching the ground, the second. Alternatively, awareness may be placed on the sensations in the soles of the feet as they touch the ground. As in sitting meditation, the intention is to use a meditation object as a means to foster enough mindfulness, alertness and effort to take the mind beyond the reach of the hindrances, in order to create the optimum conditions for the contemplation of the nature of body and mind.

(From "Without and Within")


Question: When the mind isn't thinking much, but is in a sort of dark and dull state, is there something we should do to brighten it? Or should we just sit with it?
Ajahn Chah: Is this all the time or when you are sitting in meditation? What exactly is this darkness like? Is it a lack of wisdom?
Question: When I sit to meditate, I don't get drowsy, but my mind feels dark, sort of dense or opaque.
Ajahn Chah: So you would like to make your mind wise, right? Change your posture, and do a lot of walking meditation. That's one thing to do. You can walk for three hours at a time, until you're really tired.
Question: I do walking meditation a couple of hours a day, and I usually have a lot of thinking when I do it. But what really concerns me is this dark state when I sit. Should I just try to be aware of it and let go, or is there some means I should use to counter it?
Ajahn Chah: I think maybe your postures aren't balanced. When you walk, you have a lot of thinking. So you should do a lot of discursive contemplation; then the mind can retreat from thinking. It won't stick there. But never mind. For now, increase the time you spend on walking meditation. Focus on that. Then if the mind is wandering, pull it out and do some contemplation, such as, for example, investigation of the body. Have you ever done that continuously rather than as an occasional reflection? When you experience this dark state, do you suffer over it?
Question: I feel frustrated because of my state of mind. I'm not developing samādhi or wisdom.
Ajahn Chah: When you have this condition of mind the suffering comes about because of not knowing. There is doubt as to why the mind is like this. The important principle in meditation is that whatever occurs, don't be in doubt over it. Doubt only adds to the suffering. If the mind is bright and awake, don't doubt that. It's a condition of mind. If it's dark and dull, don't doubt about that. Just continue to practice diligently without getting caught up in reactions to that state. Taking note and being aware of your state of mind, don't have doubts about it. It is just what it is. When you entertain doubts and start grasping at it and giving it meaning, then it is dark.
As you practice, these states are things you encounter as you progress along. You needn't have doubts about them. Notice them with awareness and keep letting go. How about sleepiness? Is your sitting more sleepy or awake?
(No reply)
Maybe it's hard to recall if you've been sleepy! If this happens meditate with your eyes open. Don't close them. Instead, you can focus your gaze on one point, such as the light of a candle. Don't close your eyes! This is one way to remove the hindrance of drowsiness.
When you're sitting you can close your eyes from time to time and if the mind is clear, without drowsiness, you can then continue to sit with your eyes closed. If it's dull and sleepy, open your eyes and focus on the one point. It's similar to kasina meditation. Doing this, you can make the mind awake and tranquil. The sleepy mind isn't tranquil; it's obscured by hindrance and it's in darkness.
We should talk about sleep also. You can't simply go without sleep. That's the nature of the body. If you're meditating and you get unbearably, utterly sleepy, then let yourself sleep. This is one way to quell the hindrance when it's overwhelming you. Otherwise you practice along, keeping the eyes open if you have this tendency to get drowsy. Close your eyes after a while and check your state of mind. If it's clear, you can practice with eyes closed. Then after some time you take a rest. Some people are always fighting against sleep. They force themselves not to sleep, and the result is that when they sit they are always drifting off to sleep and falling over themselves, sitting in an unaware state.
http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Monastery_Confusion1.php


Frédéric Gros: why going for a walk is the best way to free your mind
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/a ... zsche-kant

[Sam Vara]

Solvitur ambulando

[TheNoBSBuddhist]

Today during my morning walk session, I thought about the possibility of converting morning walk session into "walking meditation". I was wondering how can we make these morning walk sessions into walking meditation. Do we really need to walk slow to practice walking meditation? What addition and removal are necessary to make morning walk into walking meditation? I would much appreciate input from practitioner who have experiences with walking meditation.

It's extremely simple : do absolutely everything you do on a normal walk. Just avoid internal commentary.

[mikenz66]

Hi happylotus1

There are various ways of approaching this. If your primary aim is to focus on the motion, etc, of the feet, like you might with a more formal practice my experience is that I need to slow down a bit. For me, there is a definite speed threshold where my ability to follow what is going on really kicks in, and I can really follow what's happening. In my case this is a quite leisurely pace, not so slow that it would draw attention as being oddly slow, but close...

But the other great thing about walking is that it presents you with multiple objects that give you the opportunity to watch your mind working. Seeing the desire to turn your head to follow an attractive member of the opposite sex, for example. Seeing the feeling that a healthy, or withered, flower invokes. Seeing the intention to turn the corner. And so on. If you are focussing on that sort of thing, then the walking pace is mostly irrelevant, though, of course, if I were going very fast it would become difficult to focus on such things.


Mike

[PimonratC]

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[manas]

Do we really need to walk slow to practice walking meditation?

When I first got instructed by a Theravadan monk from the Thai tradition, he told us to just walk naturally, and I think the implication was that to bring awareness into that, is better than artificially messing with one's natural pace.

kind regards,
manas

[happylotus1]

Thank you Venerable Gavesako and dhamma friends for your kind suggestions.