“People say that walking on water is a miracle, but to me, walking peacefully on the earth is the real miracle.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh in The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation (Parallax Press, 1996), p. 58.
For many years, I would walk around the block in my neighborhood for twenty minutes before going to work at the hospital. This seems to quiet the “committee meeting” in my head. Putting my feet on the earth, even the pavement of the road, seems to reconnect my head to my body as I become “grounded.” Always when I am outside, I realize there is a world greater than the one I live in. There is a power greater than myself. I have trouble meditating when I am simply sitting; but any movement such as walking can lead me into that meditative journey.
The Vietnamese Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, is one of the most well known meditative walkers. His pocket-sized book is full of simple mindfulness exercises to practice as we walk. He introduces us to several methods of gauging and listening to our breath as we walk. He teaches us to be aware of the ground, and of our foot as it touches the ground, as well as of our breath. I established the pattern of breathing in on the drop of the right foot, breathing out on the drop of the left. This was similar to walking the labyrinth and paying close attention to the path.
In mindful walking, as we stay with our breath, we find there are no more rooms available for that committee to meet in our heads. Thich Nhat Hanh compares walking to eating, nourishing our bodies with each step. As we walk, we massage the earth.
When the baby Buddha was born, he was said to have taken seven steps, and that a Lotus flower blossomed under each step. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we imagine, with each of our steps, a flower blossoming.
We can practice mindful walking anywhere—between meetings, in hospitals, at airports, walking to our car. The Buddhist monk also offers several poems to recite while walking: “I have arrived, I am home, in the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate I dwell.”
Richard Rohr might call this contemplative walking.
Joanna . joannaseibert.com