Walking meditation

In the Four Foundations of Mindfulness discourse by the Buddha he talked about meditation in many postures and included walking, standing, and even lying down.

During the walking meditation periods at many Dhamma centers you can continue sitting if you like or continue the meditation with walking. Walking meditation is done in the “rows” of the hall, horizontally. Choose a position in the hall on one side and walk back and forth in a straight line in that row. You walk at your own pace by yourself in your row. Walking meditation is done at a slower pace than normal walking. This is to strengthen our mindfulness of each step or movement. Place your awareness to each step or if you can to each movement of lifting, moving, and placement of each foot.

As with all types of meditation, maintain awareness and equanimity. Notice the sensations of each movement of your feet and body and maintain a balanced mind to these sensations.

• 

  Walking meditation at Maha Bodhi Las Vegas

Five benefits of Walking Meditation

The Buddha recommended Walking meditation and explained the benefits in five ways.

First, it is beneficial on long journeys as it brings health, strong endurance and strength. At the time of the Buddha, there were no vehicles or means of transport, so one had to walk long distances while alms-round. It was necessary to have strong endurance.

Second, it develops energy for mindfulness practice. This is because walking meditation requires twice as much effort as doing sitting meditation in order to be mindful. In other words, it takes twice as much effort to firmly establish mindfulness with an object that changes from moment to moment.

Third, leaning only on sitting meditation can cause disease. It relaxes the muscles and helps blood circulation. Therefore, balancing sitting meditation and walking meditation is good for health and can be very helpful for the growth of mindfulness.

Fourth, it is good for food digestion. When indigestion becomes a disease, it brings great obstacles to mindfulness meditation. In particular, if you practice meditation right after waking up in the morning, you can easily get rid of drowsiness and effectively develop mindfulness during sitting meditation.

Fifth, you will double your concentration power. This increased concentration plays a decisively important role in sitting meditation.

There is a tendency to neglect the practice of walking, which is a mistaken idea. If you practice walking first and then sit down, you can double your concentration and achieve deep samadhi.

A meditator finds it difficult to maintain strong samadhi and unwavering mindfulness when meditating.

Walking meditation is another subject of focused meditation, and there are cases where you can focus on your feet slowly. This method is not recommended except for those who are particularly distracted.

Just walk at a comfortable, natural pace, but this requires awareness. All sensations arising from the sixth sense already exist, and all phenomena of the body and mind that occur naturally should be targeted. You should be able to see what is happening inside yourself, without focusing on the outside scenery or passing by other people or sounds. To meditate in any posture with movement, whether sitting or lying down, you are targeting the phenomena of the body and mind that occur within you.

It's just different from the usual walks. A walk will focus your mind on objects other than yourself, and you will fall into delusions and into a daydream. This is not different from sitting, standing or mindfulness of daily life.

Mindfulness meditation aims to develop wisdom. Walking meditation also develops wisdom by understanding the impermanent and non-self through body and mind (material and consciousness). To the extent that wisdom arises, one is freed from all defilements and the enlightenment that leads to nirvana is manifested.

In the sutta, we can often see cases of attaining enlightenment through walking meditation. I hope that all of you will be freed from pain in body and mind through continuous practice repeatedly.

See also

• Meditation postures
• The Benefits of Walking Meditation

References

• The Complete Book of Buddha's Lists -- Explained. David N. Snyder, Ph.D., 2006.
• http://www.thedhamma.com/
• http://www.the4nobletruths.com/
• Dhamma Letter No. 97, Ayyā Kosallā & Mahāpajāpatī Bhikkhunī Sangha, Edited by Euna Bonovich, 2022.