Mindful Nature Walking (One Step at a Time)

Learning to establish awareness during walking meditation helps to develop mindfulness during the activities of your daily life.

By John Cianciosi

In Bodh Gaya, India, there is an old Bodhi tree that shades the very spot where the Buddha is believed to have sat in meditation on the night of his enlightenment. Close by is a raised walking path about 17 steps in length, where the Buddha mindfully paced up and down in walking meditation after becoming enlightened, experiencing the joy of a liberated heart.

In his teachings, the Buddha stressed the importance of developing mindfulness in all postures, including standing, sitting, lying down, and even walking. When reading accounts about the lives of monks and nuns in the time of the Buddha, you find that many attained various stages of enlightenment while doing walking meditation.

The Forest Meditation Tradition of northeast Thailand, with which I am most familiar, puts great emphasis on walking meditation. The monks live in simple single-room dwellings dispersed throughout the forest, and in the area around each hut you always find a well-worn meditation path. At various times of the day or night, monks can be seen pacing up and down these paths, mindfully striving to realize the same liberation of heart attained by the Buddha. Many monks walk for long hours and actually prefer it to sitting meditation. The late Ajahn Singtong, a much admired meditation master, sometimes practiced walking meditation for 10 to 15 hours a day.

While I don't expect that many will want to walk for such a long time, you may want to try this form of meditation; it's a valuable method of mental training for furthering awareness, concentration, and serenity. If developed, it can strengthen and broaden your meditation practice to new levels of tranquility and insight.

Avoiding Extremes

In walking meditation, the primary object of attention is the process of walking itself. In other words, to sharpen awareness and train the mind to concentrate, you pay close attention to the physical act of walking, the way you take one step after another. Thus the object is more obvious and tangible than in the more refined meditation techniques, such as focusing on the breath or a mantra, which are often used in traditional sitting meditation. Focusing the mind on this more obvious object helps to avoid two extremes that meditators sometimes experience during their sitting meditation.

First, you are less likely to fall into a state of dullness or sleepiness because you are physically moving with your eyes open. In fact, walking meditation is often recommended for meditators who have a problem with the hindrance of dullness. My teacher, Ajahn Chah, used to recommend doing an all-night meditation vigil once a week. As you can imagine, one tends to get drowsy by 2 a.m., so Chah would encourage everyone to do walking meditation rather than sitting in a stupor of dullness. In extreme cases of sleepiness, Chah would advise us to walk backward-because you cannot fall asleep this way.

The other extreme is having too much energy, which typically results in feelings of mild tension or some restlessness. Because walking meditation is usually not practiced with the same intensity and concentration as a sitting practice, there is less chance of creating tension by using excessive force in an effort to focus the mind. Walking is generally a pleasant and relaxing experience for both mind and body, and therefore an excellent way to release stress or restless energy.

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