Our walking gets programmed by the drives of the mind. Whatever affects the mind affects the nervous system of the body – the body shows us the effects of our thinking. Walking meditation can return us to the natural quality of the body, so the mind can relax.

Walking helps to shift energies of the mind. The movement of walking holds the mind, helping it give up its preoccupations and come into the body. Breathing in and out, taking one step at a time, the afflicted stirred up energy recedes and you feel yourself in flow. Let your mind rest in that.

Explore how the body moves in space when there are no boundaries, no time pressures, no destination. Feel the swing of the pelvis and shoulders, moving through your environment with fluidity. Focused on your intimate environment, you’re not grabbed by the sense world. You can deal with the external environment more wholesomely and comfortably.

Walking meditation is a whole body experience. Set up the upright and lateral frame, and extend the web of energy across the whole body. ‘Listen’ with the skin as you walk, taking in the space. When the body feels its wholeness it becomes more balanced and relaxed, conducing to release.

Practice with keeping the front center of the body open, as if the skin boundary is feeling and reading the movement through space. Mind opens, drops some of its congestion. Thought patterns can be ventilated. Most important is to remain open and moored to a firm center.

The soles of the feet are incredibly sensitive, like receptors. Notice when the foot comes to the ground, the sole wakes up: this is firm, this is reliable, space around me. Walking like this is agreeable. (file edit 2023)

Walking meditation can be difficult because the mind doesn’t feel concentrated, or it can feel oppressive just walking back and forth. But being with the movement of the body, it’s possible to come out of our protective and stiff states, and enjoy the carefree fluidity.

In walking meditation, move through the identifiable world. Feel its resonances and triggerings and keep walking, see them as changing flickering phenomena. Maintain a steadiness as you walk through your world – it’s not actually yours, it’s always going its own way.

Within the movement of walking, the mind becomes still. There is a lovely quality of movement and stillness. That’s where a centre that begins to occur, a centre of awareness. Not held through fixation or obsession, it arises with the factor of ease, factor of repeated process, just going through it again and again, and clearing out the obstacles.