Monday morning walking meditation
Mondays can be a shock to your system after a weekend of stress free activity. One way to ease into it is by engaging in a little walking meditation. Meditation helps clear the mind and relax the body. It puts our troubles and worries aside for a few minutes and can provide insight into how to deal with them effectively. For many, walking meditation may do more to relax the system than sitting meditation because there is more to be mindful of.
Our upstairs hallway is about 20 feet and there’s another fifteen or so feet into the bedroom at the end of the hallway. I combine the two for my walking meditation and use a recording of a gong to let me know when my session is up. I’ll provide links at the bottom of this post for the MP3s of gong sounds that you can download for free. You can also use an egg timer or even the timer on your cell phone. I like the sound of a gong because it’s less startling.
Ideally, you want the path to be a straight line but sometimes we have to make do with the space we have. For those not familiar with meditation, I’ll give some detail into how to get started.
If you’re using one of the downloaded gong timers, theres’ a 30 second delay before the start gong to allow you to position yourself and settle down a little. Begin by becoming aware of your breathing — specifically the sensation of air passing through your nostrils. When the gong sounds, begin walking slowly, noticing the feeling of the muscles in your feet. Slowly push up with your feet as you walk and observe the sensations. While walking, you can continue to observe the air flowing through your nostrils in the background of your consciousness, but keep your focus on walking in the foreground.
When you come to the end of your path, it is useful to turn around in a structured pattern. Like a swimmer swimming laps, there are techniques to learn to keep the flow smooth. It also gives you something extra to concentrate on, which is one reason walking meditation can be easier than sitting meditation during stressful times.
Here is the technique I use for turning around:
Here are some links for the gong timers:
10 minute
20 minute
30 minute
