Q&A: Walking Meditation
How Do I Do Walking Meditation?
—
Culadasa: To meditate while you're walking, it is best to walk slowly. And as I said, the idea is to remain completely in the present. So if you find yourself thinking about the past or the future or something other than the here and now, then bring yourself back into the present and use it as the anchor for your attention.
You could use the body the way that Barb described The other thing that you can use is the sensations on the soles of your feet. So if you walk slowly, for the foot that is moving, put your attention on the sensations that are present in that foot as you lift it off the ground and raise it and move it and then place it again.
And then when that step is completed, shift your attention to the other foot, which is in the back now, and pay attention to the sensations there as we lift it and move it and place it. And so use that sensation as the object that you come back to if you find your mind leaving the here and now, the present. But as you walk, you'll also be hearing things, feeling things, seeing things, and that's all right.
Just stay in the present and keep coming back to the sensations involved with walking.
There's many different ways of doing walking meditation, so we've described just two out of many here. What they all have in common is that you're using some sensation as an anchor to keep you in the present, and that you're trying to stay in the present. As you become more skilled at staying in the present then you can start trying to stay in the present silently and stop the internal chatter, and then you can start being more and more fully mindful, more and more fully aware of what you are experiencing moment by moment as you walk.
| Added at | Sept. 26, 2020 |
| Original file name | walkingmed.mp3 |