I believe most people already practice some form of meditation, even if they don’t call it that. For some, it could be taking an early morning run. It could be cooking or painting or listening to music. Or it could just be petting your furry friend on the couch. For me, the form of meditation I’ve practiced most in my life is walking meditation. Walking—described in one scientific paper as “humans’ most fundamental form of moderate intensity physical activity”—is so basic that we usually aren’t conscious about it. It’s like breathing. I’ve been conscious about it for awhile, mostly because I do so much of it. I don’t know why or when I fell in love with walking, but I do remember one of my favorite stories growing up—one my parents told often—about how my elementary school-aged brother, fed up with how many times our mom had been late to pick him up at school, took matters into his own hands and started walking home by himself. (I think he was found walking alongside a busy road before he’d made it the full four miles.) As an adult, I have spent more than a decade living in the supremely walkable city of San Francisco. And then came one of the most beautiful and insane years of my life: In 2015, my girlfriend (at the time) and I walked across the country from New York to San Francisco. 3,000+ miles, seven months. “Why?” Aside from questions about mileage and shoes and food and where to sleep and whether we carried a gun, the most frequent question we received was “Why?” Why would anyone do that? I’ve answered many different ways, not because I don’t know, but because the answer is truly multitudinous. There’s also a very important simple answer: Because I love walking. The “why” of why I love walking is even easier to answer: Because it’s free. Because it’s exercise, but easy. Because it gets you to where you want to go. Yes, slowly, but it gets you there, and along the way you experience the sky and weather, colorful facades and fascinating architecture, people’s faces and snippets of conversation, sounds of construction and public transportation, the chirps of birds, and, in my city, the periodic, lowing foghorn. In the morning, walking wakes up the body. After a meal, walking settles the body. After a heated argument, walking calms and soothes the body. Walking brings clarity to thought. To my delight, walking meditation is a core practice in the Plum Village tradition. Every day of the retreat, after our early morning sit in the main hall, we gathered around the courtyard under the slowly brightening sky for a big group stretch session. We reached for the sky and reached for the earth, swung our arms around, did a few jumping jacks. Warmed up our bodies. And then we walked. Well, first, we were given instruction. It’s funny to be given guidance on how to walk, but it turns out the simplest, most obvious actions (like breathing) can be the most difficult to do in a mindful way. As with much in this tradition, there is no precisely right answer. But I have heard many models for how to do walking meditation. In one strict version, you breathe in with one step, and then breathe out with the other. To add to this, you can repeat a mantra while taking your steps: Breathe in with one step thinking “this present moment” … and then breathe out with the other step thinking “this wonderful moment.” Doing it this way means it could take you a full minute just to walk a couple meters. Another method is possibly even more intense: Treat each step as if it is the only step. If the goal is to be fully aware of the miraculous blessing of life, this is the way. Call it the last step, the first step, or the only step. The result is the same: Everything else passes away, leaving nothing but you, your feet kissing the earth, and the present moment. For me, already a lover of walking, some of these models felt too artificial to me. So I simply focus on breathing naturally and taking intentional steps. I also enjoy the mantra, timing the phrases with my in-breath and out-breath, but the writer in me sought to constantly modify the second line based on my surroundings and feelings. I allowed myself that little bit of fun: _This present moment (breathing in) This **wonderful** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **blissful** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **beautiful** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **blooming** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **delightful** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **ascending** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **loving** moment (breathing out) This present moment (breathing in) This **peaceful** moment (breathing out) That first morning of the retreat, we followed our sister up the mountain trail, all of us silently, slowly stepping—mindful, mindful. I was one of the slowest, sometimes nearly stumbling for lack of balance. Upon reaching the plateau, I joined several people in standing still, facing east, mountain pose, eyes closed, basking in the first rays of sunshine. Descending the hill, my mind wandered to my dog, wondering what that little lover of walks would have thought of us and our slow, mindful steps. I imagined her trudging along faithfully, indulging in trailside scents, but eventually sighing in mild frustration at the tedium. Sweet girl. I am with her, fully agreeing that I do my best walking when I do it naturally. And yes, mindfully. That’s how I wish to walk around my home. It’s how I wish to walk to the street and through the city. Alongside the sea and through the forests, mountains, deserts. Grateful for my two feet, grateful for the earth, grateful for this present moment, this peaceful moment. — *First published on https://write.as/wakeup on 2024-08-06 #retreat #DeerParkMonastery #walking #meditation #human #love #freedom #PlumVillage #breath #awareness #gratitude #thepresentmoment #peace