Walking meditation.
So walk in quite a natural way,
Walk in a natural,
Walk at a natural pace.
Not too fast but not too slow.
As if you're ambling and you might be ambling,
You might be actually on a walk taking this recording with you or you might have space where you can do walking meditation.
And rather than going around in a circle,
Which you may be more familiar with,
See if you've got enough space that you can just walk up and down,
Back and forth.
So that might be in a corridor on a landing in your house or flat.
It might be in your garden if you have one.
So back and forth at quite an open,
Relaxed pace.
And you're simply walking,
Knowing that you're walking.
You might find the attention naturally goes into the feet or the lower limbs,
The movement of the hips,
The knees.
Feeling the bones in the feet and the muscles in the legs.
At times you may notice the movement in the hips and the back,
The big back muscles joining in.
So there's no particular place you need to rest your attention.
Except perhaps just quite generally within your physical experience within the body.
You may well notice the breath as you walk.
Breath moving in and out of the body.
You may well notice how the awareness moves from one part of the body to another.
Takes up different objects.
Feeling different sensations,
Perhaps from the touch of your clothing to the touch of a cool breeze on a different part of your body.
Just looking to stay present,
Not to any one particular object.
Stay present and notice where the mind goes,
Where it goes in the body.
Something that we often miss is happening in walking meditation.
Because it's so implicit and integral to our experience we can miss the fact that seeing is happening.
Often rather than the process of seeing we are quite actively looking and in that way we go out towards the objects of experience.
So notice if you see that happening.
There's looking,
You might feel the reaching out towards the object in your field of vision.
And when that happens see if it's possible to settle back.
Let the eyes soften.
Let the gaze become broader.
And you might find that you notice a lot more in your peripheral vision.
It's almost like seeing around corners.
So with that softness and relaxation in the eyes,
In the seeing,
It helps us stay closer to home,
Closer to our actual experience,
Present to that.
Seeing if it's possible to,
In the noticing,
To enjoy what's happening.
Enjoy that sense of being present to the body moving.
Different sensations.
How it all just happens.
And it's likely too that at times you'll notice thoughts,
You'll notice perhaps opinions and judgments,
Ideas about what's happening.
So just noticing those,
Perhaps just identifying thinking is happening in experience.
There's nothing you particularly need to do with thoughts besides just clearly knowing them as thoughts.
The mental activity of thinking is happening.
But you may notice thoughts about the practice and it can be worth tuning in to those.
They can affect our experience.
How is the mind feeling about this practice,
This walking meditation?
Does it have views and opinions?
Just being curious about that.
And seeing if we can use those moments of awareness of thinking to help the mind be ever more present to what's happening within the mind-body experience.
And if you find it helpful you might want to anchor your attention within a certain part of the body by anchoring perhaps in the contact between the soles of the feet and the ground.
It can help if there's any tendency to get a little bit lost,
Especially lost in thoughts or lost in looking at different objects.
So with your anchor you just pay a little bit more attention to those sensations wherever you choose to put them.
And in this way you can just continue to walk,
Continue to be present to whatever's happening.
If you're out for a walk you might find that you want to experiment with how it is to go between seeing and looking or how it might be to take in what's around you,
Perhaps take in the beauty of what's around you,
But from that saddleback perspective.
And just keep going for as long as you'd like to.
