7. Mindful Walking

Welcome, friend! I’m Lin Cassie Zhen, and thank you for joining me on Being Awareness, where we explore mindfulness, meditation, and self-awareness. This podcast not only serves as a practice in discovering my own path as a mindfulness meditation teacher, but its primary purpose is to offer people one of the many way to discover and rediscover their own deep wisdom through the practice of mindfulness.

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## Mindful walking

This week’s exploration mindful walking. Just like standing practice, mindful walking might often neglected. Perhaps partially because it doesn't neatly fit into the popular mental model of meditation, which is sitting in silence with the eyes closed. However, building mindfulness skills is about bringing mindfulness into our everyday lives, and walking meditation is a great way to connect mindfulness with movement.

When the body is moving and we pay attention to what's happening in our body and mind, it's a wonderful opportunity to develop calm, connectedness, and embodied awareness. Mindful walking can gradually build mindfulness, one step at a time, literally. It can also bring a sense of presence and grounding into a hectic day.

Mindful walking can be practiced anywhere, whether at home, on the street, in the park, or even from your desk to the kitchen in the office. Some teachers may suggest starting the practice at home and gradually bringing it outside. Since practicing at home can provide a sense of familiarity and comfort when developing a new practice, while practicing outside can provide an immediate connection between mindfulness and the everyday life. It all depends on what feels most appropriate for you, so please feel free to choose wherever you feel most comfortable to walk mindfully.

If you’re able to join, I’d like to invite you for a quick practice of mindful walking meditation. If walking is not available to you, please feel free to join anyway in any other positions that are available.

## Mindful Walking

Select a place where you feel is most appropriate to practice mindful walking. If at home, find a place where you can easily walk about 10 steps forward. If outside, please keep safety in mind and keep away from obvious obstacles.

Gently keeping the eyes open, and your gaze soft. I invite you to take a moment and ground into your standing. Bringing the awareness downwards to your feet, feel how the bottom of your feet are contacting the ground. Letting your hands rest easy, in which ever position that feels most comfortable. Taking a few deep relaxing breaths… whenever you’re ready, gently allowing the breath to flow back to its natural rhythm. Feel free to gently open up your senses and feel your surroundings. Notice whatever may be arising in your environment.

[pause]

Being present and alert, slowly bringing your awareness back into the body.

I’d like to invite you to begin walking, perhaps a bit slower than usual. Observe how your foot is contacting the ground in this rolling motion. Mindfully placing the foot down, which part touches the ground first? How does it receive the weight of your body? Feeling into the transition of weight between steps, what do you notice in the body as you are walking?

[long pause]

Feel each step mindfully as you walk. If it’s helpful, you might want to inwardly whisper “lifting” as you lift each foot, and “placing” when you put the foot down, with each step. The purpose is to ground the mind and body into whatever is happening right now.

[long pause]

If you’re at home and have reached the length of your walking path, feel free to gently turn around and pace the same path. Also paying mindful attention to the body whenever you’re turning back.

[long pause]

Where’s your attention now? If you notice the mind has drifted off, gently acknowledge this and then bring your attention back to the sensations of walking.

[long pause]

A simple yet very effective exercise of deepening the attention in the body is to bring your awareness to the hands while walking. As you continue your walking, I’d like to invite you to slowly turn both of your palms to face the front, in the direction you’re going. Feel free to gently stretch out and open up your fingers. Notice the sensations that are arising in your hands as you continue to walk. Notice the space between your fingers and what that feels like. [pause] Slowly and gently, rotating the arms, and allowing the palms to face backwards, away from the direction you’re going. Notice what sensations are arising in your hands now. Notice the space in between your fingers, and what it feels like. [pause]

Gently let go of rotating the hands, and simply shifting the awareness to focus on the feet. The sensation of each movement, the feeling of contacting the ground, the sensation of weight shifting between the feet.

[long pause]

Where is your attention now? If you notice the mind has drifted off, gently hold this too with compassion, and allowing yourself to bring your attention back to the sensation of walking.

In the next 30 seconds or so, please feel free to open up your awareness again and take in your surroundings as you’re walking. Recognize your interaction with your surroundings with every single step.

At the sound of the bell, feel free to pause all activities and come into stillness.

[bell]

Scanning through the body. Bringing attention to its whole and its parts. What qualities, if any, has shifted since the beginning of the meditation?

Thank you for practicing mindful walking with me today.

Before we go back to our everyday activities, I’d like to offer you an inquiry. How did you relate to mindful movement through walking? How might you like to bringing the mindfulness of walking into your everyday life?