Walking meditation

[sunstone8]

I like walking a labyrinth and meditating.

[Starman]

There is this town in Northern California called “The City of Ten Thousand Buddha’s (CTTB),” there you will see lots of Buddhist monks doing walking meditation in open fields with peacocks and pink flamingos everywhere. The monks meditate while walking to their next whatever it is they are going to do. CTTB offers free events and workshops,

http://www.cttbusa.org/

You can also rent a room and stay there for a while to learn from the monks. In walking meditation focus is on the meditation experience and let that carry you as you walk in silence, or chanting a mantra while walking. Walking meditation can give a feeling of floating as we allow our physical body to walk while our mind is very still, silent, and suspended.

Purest say that the only way to meditate is using yoga postures but you can experience meditation while laying flat on your back, hanging upside down as I often do when I use my inversion table, and also while walking. The point is to get the meditation experience to stay with you regardless what you are doing.

Most people experience their deepest meditation while sitting and shortly after they stand up their experience diminishes. Walking meditation helps us further nurture the longevity of our meditation experience. We can have a very deep meditation experience no matter what our body is doing.

[Redchic12]

Thanks for that Starman.

[Catsquotl]

In the vipassana style I was taught we alternate an the same time in walking and sitting.

Instead of the breath as the meditation object one takes the feet. as left is moving note "walking left". As the right foot moves not "walking right.
Up and down a path of maybe 10 to 20 paces.. Everytime you notice how your mind isn't with the feet anymore stand still and note whatever it is you are doing. then note you are standing, then that you are intending to walk and then start walking again..

The following playlist on youtube is very very similar to how I've been taught.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...PEDRfLuvQ2QaXg

[Gem]

Just have to say, I'm a purist and I don't say those things Starman mentioned.

My view is walking should be at a normal gait, not rushed, though, and not especially slow either. Just taking a stroll.

It's probably a good idea to feel your feet I think. The soles of the feet on the ground are pretty easy to feel and having the same 'return point' is probably a little better than attention jumping around from one part of the body to the next. Sometimes when I'm walking I just feel my hands tingling and the air rushing past them as they move to and fro. I like that one. It's a bit more subtle to feel.

It's just my opinion that it's better to be perfectly simple such as, I will feel my feet while I walk along. Probably stick with feet for a few weeks because really easy to feel, and maybe switch to hands for a few weeks after that because the wind feeling on them is more subtle for the more sensitive mind. Other little refinements come naturally after a while, like perhaps breath timed strides or fuller postural awareness or something, but I think sticking to the same thing for a number of weeks at least is for the best - starting with the easiest and refining it from there.

[Starman]

In walking meditation a person is not moved by their feet, rather they are moved by their meditation experience with the awareness of a flow which carries them. In this state walking becomes intuitive; it is not manually done, rather it is done from a place of deeper awareness. Only the experience of it can accurately convey it. I can attest; we do not see with our eyes rather we see with our awareness. Silent meditation involves trust.

[dream jo]

I know I have meditate in the graveyard as place were there and it's very peaceful there it's because there's a lot of state located in there look in there

[Starman]

I had this experience a number of decades ago, while camping in the great outdoors where myself and two other people got caught in a forest fire. The three of us had been doing meditation for many years, and when we began to run from the forest fire it felt like we were floating at high speed out of there in total silence, and all three of us had the same experience. Now this was not walking meditation per se but it was a similar experience that some might have had in walking meditation.

[Redchic12]

Thanks everyone for your comments. It gives me some ideas of what to try.

Starman that place sounds amazing but unfortunately I’m about twelve thousand miles away lol. I can see if there is something similar here tho.

Wow fancy floating away from a fire. What a buzz!

[sunstone8]

Labyrinths are all over the place. I found one while on a vacation in Laughlin Nevada one time. There is a website you can look them up on. I felt very peaceful at the labyrinth in Laughlin Nevada.