Walking Meditation

The idea behind walking meditation is walking consciously. Walk slowly and just be mindful of your walking. When you walk you have to feel the different sensations in the body while you are walking. Thoughts will come but please learn to let go of the thoughts and come back to the present, that is the walking.

Whatever you are doing, please do it slowly, consciously, with mindfulness.

Walk slowly, consciously. Feeling the sensations in your feet. Using walking to experience the present moment.

Keep your hands in front.

Walk slowly so that you can be conscious of all the movements and sensations in your body when you are walking.

Let go of your thoughts and come back to the present with the help of walking. Just walking in a very relaxed way.

Learning to enjoy the simple act of walking.

When you are lifting your feet know that you are lifting your feet.

Just feel the earth with your feet.

Learning to relax with your walking. Learning to walk consciously.

Can you walk as if you are walking on lotus flowers, gently, tenderly – just being conscious of each step?

Meditation and Yoga

I would like to make a few points about the connection between meditation and yoga. One thing is that when you do yoga you learn to be aware, mindful of your body, you learn to relax your body, you learn to be friendly and kind towards the body, you learn to use yoga exercises to experience the present moment. These are some aspects of yoga in connection with meditation.

Visions

Seeing visions reflects different phases in the practice. Sometimes these visions, these pictures you see are very pleasant, sometimes they are very unpleasant. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant just know that you are seeing something, that you are having this experience, without thinking: Is it abnormal? Is it normal? If you react in that way you are getting involved with what is happening. So what you need to do is not to get involved but just to know, just to say okay and then after some time the sensation will stop.

Our Thoughts

Do we have more thoughts about the past? Do we have more thoughts about the future? Why do I have more thoughts about the past? What happens when I think about the future? Do I have anxiety? This is why we have to find out, learn about our thoughts and how the thoughts can create emotions and how they can create suffering. This is a very important aspect of the practice. So it is not only stopping thoughts but understanding, learning, discovering about them.

Negative Thoughts

Most thoughts are either about ourselves or about others. And sometimes the thoughts are negative about yourself, negative about others; so it’s just to know how we are having negative thoughts about ourselves and others and how when we have such negative thoughts emotions are created. So these are very important insights to develop by watching thoughts.

Thoughts are Coming

When thoughts come we should be aware, mindful that thoughts are coming, and make friends with them, not to have a conflict, and then come back to the breath. But we can be aware of the breath for a few minutes, then again thoughts will come. This is the nature of the mind, that we don’t have much control. So meditation is understanding how our minds work, making friends with our mind and whatever is happening, and training ourselves to slowly, gently come back to the breath.

It is very important even when we are not sitting to continue to be aware and mindful of the thoughts that we are having. Even while relaxing, while eating, we are having thoughts. So whatever we are doing it’s a very good practice to be conscious of our thoughts, not only when we are meditating. We can learn a great deal about our thoughts by just watching them, just asking: What are the thoughts that I’m having?

Stop Thinking

It is not possible to stop thinking. The more we try to stop thinking the more thoughts we have. That is why I said: it is natural that thoughts will arise. So what we are trying to do is to be aware, to be mindful of the thoughts themselves. Thoughts, sounds, sensations, whatever there is in the mind and the body. So in that sort of meditation if you have thoughts there is no need to have a conflict.

Something Special

There is a meditation master in Sri Lanka who says that when we sit, if we think meditation is something special then we will have special problems! So here we are trying to give special attention to the breath and then the breath behaves in an unusual way, and when you ignore the breath it becomes normal.

So don’t see meditation and breathing as something special and just be with it. And even when you are outside, when you think you are not meditating, just continue to have a connection with the breath, to continue to be aware of the breath at other times also.

This Body

Be aware of your body. You can close your eyes and just feel the different sensations, the different movements in your body.

Learning to feel the body, learning to feel friendly towards the body.

Feel grateful that you have this body and that we can use the body for our practice.

If you can relax your body, you can relax your mind. Feeling relaxed is not resisting anything in the body and in the mind.

Please allow your body to breathe naturally. Let the body breathe the way the body likes to breathe.

When the body is exhaling you know that the body is exhaling. When the body is inhaling you know that the body is inhaling. Have your complete and full attention on the in-breath and the out-breath.

It is natural that you will have thoughts. Just know that you are having thoughts. Don’t resist them, don’t dislike them, but pay more and more attention on the in-breath and the out-breath.

If you are having any unpleasant sensations in the body, please learn to be mindful of them, to be aware of them, learning to make friends with them, learning to say okay to unpleasant sensations.

Unpleasant Sensations

It is extremely important to learn to work with unpleasant sensations in whatever forms they arise in the body. Just by knowing them and learning to make friends with them, not to see them as problems: that is the practice, because while meditating if you learn to handle these unpleasant sensations that arise then in everyday life when they arise you know how to handle them. So it is very helpful that these unpleasant sensations arise when you are meditating.