The art of walking meditation

by Inspyria 03-09-2018

“I need to walk.” You hear these words resonate in your mind and, intelligent, your mind sends the desire to the body.

Tips for practicing
Tips for practicing walking meditation

Tips for practicing

Your legs become active and begin to walk, you ramble, aimlessly. You simply start walking. There is certain noise in your mind, but you keep walking, one foot after the other. Your breathing soothes at every step, your body feels lighter, the air you breathe is fresher. Your lungs widen, blood flow increases, your brain oxygenates ? You have not been thinking, you just walk, present and absent, so simple and complex, so quotidian and miraculous, you simply ARE.

One step after another

When you take this simple way of walking to nature, your eyes widen, your pores open and you begin to merge with the environment. Vivid colors, the smell of earth, the sounds of the branches and the singing of the birds. The feeling of the wind on your skin, the sound of your steps as you walk on the stones ? the whole thing is enveloping you ? you access a state of meditation.

When you come back, you feel that whatever was that was worrying you has lost strength, or it has even disappeared. What you felt was oppressing you has been released. Air runs between your thoughts and you become calm, in peace.

It seems that more and more people begin to resonate with the idea of moving??meditation, something so natural and instinctive at the same time. No course is needed to learn this practice, only being mindful to a gift that has been given to us, walking.

It is so effective and necessary that more and more spiritual retreats introduce the art of walking meditation in combination with other activities of reconnection with oneself and with the whole.

Tips for practicing walking meditation

Do you feel the need? Do not think about it, go alone or call a friend, but go out now.
Head towards a path, better if it is in the nature, but whatever you have within reach.
Take a moment to pay attention to your physical / emotional / mental / spiritual state before walking.
START WALKING.
Pay attention to the SURROUNDING (landscape, temperature, sounds, smells ?). Take some time to wander around, start practicing MINDFULNESS.
Gently bring your attention to the sensations on your body (is it rigid / heavy? points of contact of your feet on the earth, quality of your breathing, pace of your steps ?).
Slowly detach yourself from everything and FOCUS on the mere act of walking.
At the end, pay attention again to your physical / emotional / mental / spiritual state and observe if something has changed.
Savour the benefits of the art of walking meditation.

?The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.?

Thich Nhat Hahn

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