Walking Meditation – Why is good for you and your mind?

Walking Meditation Guide for Beginners

Walking meditation is much slower than normal walks, and involves either coordination with the breathing, or specific focusing practices. It can seem like the perfect solution because it is a way to exercise and meditate at the same time incorporating breathing and mantra technic. It looks more like meditation than like walking.

What is walking meditation?

It’s really mindful walking, but depending on how you practice it there’s more to it than just that. And there’s definitely more to it than simply the practice in itself.

Walking meditation is something which has perhaps been practiced for thousands of years in some formulation.

Unlike seated meditation, when walking your eyes are open, the body is standing and moving, and there is a bit more interaction with the outside world. Some people find it useful to keep the eyelids half closed. Because the body is moving, it is easier to be mindful of the body sensations and anchored in the present moment; for this reason, many people find walking meditation easier than seated meditation.

Walking meditation is highly nourishing and allows you to find a moment of peace and a sense of being grounded or “balanced” each day that’s invaluable for our well-being.

Where should try to practice?

Stay away from high-traffic and heavily populated walking areas. It’s also important that you feel safe in your surroundings.

Start walking at your natural pace. Try to go practice in a beach, coast, in a wood, a city park or in a meadow. Ideally, the walking path should be slightly enclosed, so there is less distraction from the scenery, and the mind can more easily go inwards.

What is your comfortable to wear?

Observe the sensations in your body: heat, cold aches, pains, and so on. Even whether your clothes and shoes are rubbing or you are wearing enough layers. You may need to stop and make adjustments before you continue.

Walking meditation length

Ideally, practice for at least 15 minutes. Since there is no discomfort of seated practice or of not moving, you can naturally do it for longer periods than seated meditation.

Techniques of walking meditation

Walking in a circle

It is a technique that is sometimes used, but the disadvantage is that the continuity of a circle can conceal a wandering mind. Walking back and forth, the little interruption when you stop at the end of your path can help to catch your attention if it has wandered.

Walk more slowly than normal, but the pace can vary. Fast walking may bring a greater sense of ease when you are agitated.

In walking meditation, the focus is on the alternating stepping of the feet. With your attention in the legs and feet, feel the sensations of each step.

Following your steps

Following your steps is the natural progression of counting your steps and is a slightly more difficult walking meditation technique.

If you find it difficult to go directly from there to here, you can always try counting your left (or right) and following your right or left. In this way, you’re doing a practice which is in the middle of the two, which can sometimes be easier if you’re finding it hard to transition to this version.

Like sitting in meditation and counting your breath, after you get to a point where you’ve gotten used to counting your steps and can do it relatively effectively, I’d begin simply walking and following the full length of each individual step.

It’s at this point that it’s important to really break down the act of walk because in mindfulness practice it’s important to know exactly what you’re doing in each moment so that you can be fully present for that moment.

• Begin walking at a naturally slow pace. Walk slowly, but naturally.
• Posture & positioning. Walk with good posture and bring your hands up to around your diaphragm. This hand positioning helps balance and stabilizes you while walking.
• Match your steps to your breath.
• Follow your steps and follow the movement of your left foot from the time you begin lifting the foot, and then as you place it back down. Then the same with the right foot back-and-forth.
• Be mindful. Be fully present as you count each in-breath and each out-breath.
• Acknowledge that which arises.

Yoga walking meditation

Before starting any of the following exercises, take some time to really calm the breathing. Breathe with the suggested pattern for a few times, just standing, before you start with the steps.

Follow these exercises:

Exercise 1 (Breathing 4-4-4-4)

In this exercise, there is inhalation, retention and exhalation, all the same length.

• Inhale for 4 steps
• Retain the breath for 4 steps
• Exhale slowly for 4 steps
• Retain empty for 4 steps

For instance, it could be 3-3-3-3 or 6-6-6-6.

Exercise 2 (Breathing 1:4:2)

Here, the rhythm for inhalation-retention-exhalation is 1:4:2, which is more challenging. You can start with 2-8-4 or 3-12-6, and increase by time.

• Inhale for 3 steps
• Retain the breath for 12 steps
• Exhale slowly for 6 steps

Exercise 3 (Mantra)

Keep your pace and breathing slowly, and repeat your mantra with each step, or break it into a few steps.

 

Additional technic of walking meditation

Simply walking (in everyday life)

There’s the fact that when you begin your walking meditation practice you generally walk rather slowly so that you can maintain mindfulness (something which won’t be a problem with the practice, but at first a slow pace is required). This obviously isn’t the pace you ever walk in your everyday life.

Walking in nature

It is the Walk of Life walking meditation. Imagine yourself expanding out indefinitely, your legs as roots, your arms as branches, and many leaves blooming all around you. Focus on your abdomen for a moment, keep your feet planted firmly on the ground, and feel your sense of stability.

Discover the path, connect with the Earth. Breathe the walking. Walk the breathing. Walk the path. Simply begin breathing mindfully. Once you’ve taken a few breaths, begin walking. Walk relatively slowly.

Additional Resources

• If you’d like to take your mindfulness practice further, including the beautiful practice of walking meditation, read more in the pages of Wikipedia.
• Follow the instructions of this video: Walking guided meditation
• Join our group of yoga, meditation, and yoga equipment.

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