Returning from the Realm of Ideas to the Immediacy of Now: The “Golden Moment”

When our lives seem as scary and threatening as they do now, thinking clearly, critically, and calmly can be even more difficult than it usually is. We might want to hide reality away. Decisions can feel too weighty and complex. So, I find myself trying to remember what was most helpful when life was a little easier.

 

Maybe 20 years ago, I was lucky enough to take a mindfulness workshop with the author and Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. One teaching that stood out for me was on “the Golden Moment.” This is the moment when we realize we’ve drifted off from what we were doing. We become aware that we’ve lost focus, been distracted, and had ceased being present. And we re-focus on what we’re doing. We return from thoughts, memories, and plans⎼ we return from the realm of ideas to the immediacy of now. This results not only in deeper meditation but clearer questioning and thinking, thinking more engaged with the multiple realities of a situation. It has been helpful in so much of my life.

 

It took a while for me to realize the depth and breadth of the teaching. It reminds us to take a minute; to let all the information and the different aspects of a situation settle in our mind before acting. This is such an old insight. My parents often told me as a child to sleep on a weighty decision. We can take a walk and step out of an old viewpoint so we see a new one. Or we practice mindfulness or meditation.

 

When we slow our breath, being aware of the long exhale, the pause.  Then the inhale, pause, and exhale. This technique is called box breathing. Slowing the breath with awareness naturally slows the rush of thought. It releases us from what binds and blinds us. We feel richer in time⎼ that we have more to give.

 

And we become aware of feelings and emotions. Feelings spur action. They can alert us to important perceptual information we often ignore or don’t take time to notice. We might feel an inner message of danger, of pain or pleasure confronting us; notice energy arising to step forward, retreat, or freeze. We can become aware of details that prove crucial in decision making. So, we need, as much as possible in that moment, to let ourselves feel what we feel. And then we can rationally examine the situation and what we’ve felt.

 

We become aware of awareness itself, the quality of our mind right now, and whether we’re interpreting what we perceive more fully or accurately. Of course, there are limitations on conscious awareness, limits on how much information we can process. So much of what our eyes and other senses pick up is not registered consciously.

 

And there’s what’s called inattentional blindness….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

The Message of the Stag: If we Don’t Exercise it, We Lose It

I was 18. It was early spring, with just a little snow left on the ground. I was in a forest, taking a walk, while a deep fog was emerging from the ground itself, covering everything, turning the world gray, indistinct. Hazy. And suddenly, ten feet or so away, the head of a deer appeared before me as if it had been born from the fog itself; as if a brand-new dimension of the ordinary had shown itself. It was startling. Unexpected. It stared at me, and I stood there with it, rooted to the spot. Not one thought in my mind. The whole universe had become just us, just this.

 

And then it was gone. The deer was gone, but the beauty of the fog, of the moment remained.

 

Last fall, another encounter with a deer. I was once again on a walk, this time it was fall, in the late afternoon, on our rural road, and I saw a deer crossing about 300 feet ahead of me. I continued walking and when I got closer, I noticed it was a stag, with maybe a 2-year growth of horns. Instead of running off, like deer usually do, it stopped, turned, and walked at a strong pace toward me. I stopped. He stopped and looked right at me.

 

I wondered if he was confused and mistook me for another deer, or if he was sick. Was he preparing to approach further to see what I was, or to attack? I got my cellphone out and took a quick photo. Only then did he run off.

 

What was the message here, if anything?  How do I understand this? Surely, one way is to read about and carefully observe deer behavior and figure out why deer act as they do. But each deer, not that unlike each human, is similar to but different from any other. Unique.

 

After he ran off, I took a breath and took time to enjoy what had happened. A wild animal had studied me as I had studied it. It was a beautiful moment, a gift of nature.

 

How we understand an event or sensory signal is at least as important as the initial stimuli we’ve experienced. I’ve talked about this in blogs about dealing with pain. If we interpret chest pain as a heart attack, it becomes crazily more intense than if we interpret it as indigestion.

 

The principle is the same in relating with other people. How we respond to comments from a teacher or friend, an event in the news or a statement of a politician, can be more consequential in our lives than what was originally said or done. Despite all the ugliness and fear in our nation right now, we don’t want to become ugly and always afraid. Despite all those who aim to make us feel small, isolated, and powerless we want to look at life as broadly and honestly as possible. What we see is obviously influenced both by what we look at and the attitude, or mindset we bring to it.

 

And how we interpret an event can determine how much we inhabit that moment of our lives. We evaluate stimuli, occurrences in terms of approach-avoid. Helpful-harmful. Pleasurable-unpleasurable. Good-bad⎼ or neutral. This is built into us. And we can subject ourselves to this same propensity, of looking for threats, dangers, mistakes before we see anything else.

 

Psychologists and others say we humans have a “negativity bias.”…

 

**To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

When Life is too Big for Pretense: Sometimes, Total Honesty and Authenticity Are the Only way

We’ve all experienced pain, both psychological and physical. It’s one element of being alive, yet can be too complex to figure out, so difficult to live with. It can feel like it could shatter us. Maybe we just want it gone and yearn for a pill to mask it or chase it away. Certainly, it exists to signal something is wrong, but it can take on a life of its own, beyond any apparent purpose. It can also house inside itself impactful revelations.

Just a few days ago, an anecdote in a book I had just started reading grabbed my attention. It was Gerry Shishin Wick’s The Five Ranks of Zen; Tozan’s Path of Being, Nonbeing & Compassion. Tozan was a ninth century Zen Master, and his work significantly advanced the practice of Zen.

A monk asked Tozan “How do you avoid the discomfort of hot and cold?” Tozan replied, “Go to that place where there is no hot and cold… When you are hot, be hot; and when you are cold, be cold.”

Recently, I’ve been experiencing a weird pain wrapped in chills. It can feel like an invasion of cold, and I then treat it as such and just want it gone. Other times, it seems to rise from deep within me. I’ve spoken with doctors and tried all sorts of medical, and psychological approaches. I’ve considered how lucky I am that it’s not something worse.

When I can, I try to notice how and from where it came. I notice my response to sensations, and the labels I use for them; our response to pain is as important as the original sensations. If we think we’re having a heart attack, the pain can become immensely greater than if we think we have GERD.

Sometimes, when that cold-pain overtakes me, I visualize in my mind a warm, beautiful day in a place I love. And sometimes, this works, if I don’t shake so much it shatters the image of warmth I had created.

We can get hooked on pain. Pain can narrow our focus, and we can’t let it go. So maybe we then expand the universe of experience, so the pain becomes only one stimulus amidst hundreds. We let it share a moment of our lives with everything else around us, chairs and tables, trees and birds, spatial distances from our body to the walls of the room, or between our nose and toes. Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins describe this method in Dissolving Pain; Simple Brain-Training Exercises for Overcoming Chronic Pain.

But so far, no doctor has explained, no approach has fully healed the pain. So, this anecdote speaking of hot and cold, this story⎼ or what in Zen Buddhism is called a Koan, a retold conversation of a Zen master with a student meant to lead to awakening⎼ got to me. It felt so right but its reality eluded me.

What if instead of thinking myself separate from the pain and experiencing it as foreign, it became just one moment of a universe experiencing itself?…

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

Reducing Anxiety so We Can Live Through the Next Few Days. Final Thoughts: In an Autocracy, We as Citizens, Consumers, Patients, and Workers Lose Our Rights

First, a personal concern:

How do we reduce the anxiety most of us are feeling about the election to something we can live with? DT has done all he can to make this difficult. He has worked to make the election as chaotic and threatening as possible. He’s done all he could to try to fix or hold up election results and frighten election workers. He’s promised if he wins to rule like a dictator, use the military against those who oppose him, and violence if he loses. He has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was rigged, and now he claims this one’s been rigged, so whether he loses, or wins, we won’t know who our next president will be for hours, days or weeks after Tuesday. But the evidence shows that the only candidate in the 2024 race who’s tried to illegally interfere in the election process is DT himself.

 

I’m tired of him. I want him to just lose, again, but this time, disappear from the political stage. I’m trying different strategies to keep my eyes open while keeping my heart rate as comfortable as I can. One strategy is to do whatever and as much as I can to get out the vote, or as Michelle Obama said, to do something.

 

I’m also considering my own health, mental and physical. One way I’m doing that is to study how, in the worst of times, maybe we can get stronger. In the midst of my fright, maybe there’s buried the way to face what frightens me. In a book about the Japanese Zen teacher and philosopher Dogen Zenji by Shinshu Roberts, the author quotes Dogen and other teachers on facing what we don’t like. The mental states that we wish would just disappear, he says, might just reveal the wisdom that we need. We don’t find wisdom in a vacuum. There are things we must put off; it’s difficult to talk about wisdom when our mind is focused on survival. Yet our lives are so much better when we can bring as much awareness as possible to whatever we face.

 

Maybe if we can just stop what we’re doing, and sit, stand, exercise, or take a walk in a beautiful area; maybe take a breath. Feel our feet on the floor. For one minute we can take a holiday and feel this moment, now, so fully we won’t have the space to imagine later. Maybe when it’s possible and with as much awareness as possible, we can write down or dance out the thoughts in our mind or the feelings in our body, without editing or hiding them. Then we will better perceive how to face the next moment, no matter what occurs. And, if we haven’t done so already, we can be relaxed yet alert when we vote.

 

A last argument before the election:

A week before election day, Kamala Harris gave a powerful final argument for her campaign. She said we all know who DT is and what he’d delver, more chaos, hate, and division. More power and wealth to the rich at the expense of the rest of us. For example, his 10-50% tariff on imported goods would raise the burden on most of us hundreds to  thousands of dollars while proportionally reducing the burden on the rich. Many economists warn his plans could crash the economy.

 

But what needs to be said more clearly is that the economy and the cost of living is not a separate issue from that of democracy….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Who’s That Walking in My Shoes

I remember when I was a late teen or college student getting ready for a “date” or to go out with friends. I would listen to Bob Dylan, or some music that I could sing or shout along with that would bring me alive. Make me feel real. I wasn’t sure back then who I was, or if I was boring, or what I had to offer other people.

 

Another form of this question sometimes arises before meditating. I’ll feel something like reluctance, or fear of just being there, a fear of sitting quietly for a specified length of time. I’ll suddenly feel uncomfortable in myself, locked up by time. And I might notice a fear of letting go of distractions or that of things I’ve hidden away would come to the forefront. I might be afraid of what would happen if I stopped living life as a story written for myself.

 

This is why it’s so important to choose our own ways to silently rest in ourselves; why it’s so important to be as real with ourselves as we can in that moment. Maybe even kind and loving. When we’re unkind, it’s so hard to let ourselves perceive who we truly are or what’s truly there.

 

A few years ago, a study apparently showed that many people have great difficulty just sitting still. Many of us can’t sit for even 15 minutes without turning to our phone, or music; or for something else to distract us and occupy our mind⎼ or something to shock our attention. Besides asking people to just sit, alone, the study added a little twist. It allowed those who felt bored or incapable of sitting without a distraction to deliver a physical shock to themselves. The result: 70% of men and 20% of the women chose the physical pain.  Some did it repeatedly.

 

The study (or studies) concluded: “In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.”

 

The researchers could not determine if the women who didn’t shock themselves were better at sitting still, better at resisting the shock treatment, or maybe better at being alone with their thoughts. And the situation has just gotten worse with FOMO and the increased use of social media.

 

Maybe we’re looking at this from a confusing angle. When we’re on a line waiting for popcorn, or to buy movie tickets; or we’re on a flight to a distant destination, the length of time can feel oppressive. When this happens, it’s our thoughts about the future making the present feel inadequate or burdensome. Or when we meditate and think about the half hour we’ve set aside, we can become focused on time as an abstraction. There’s nothing to hold onto but a mental creation, something separate from ourselves, and we lose our sense of breathing in and out. We lose our sense of now….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

How Do We Find Peace in the Noise? How Can We Understand the World and Our Lives More Deeply?

I went to see an orthopedic surgeon about hand pain, which comes to me in a great variety of forms and places; just to keep me interested, I guess. Before I left home, the pain was mild. But once I arrived at the office, it was very notable, showing it’s face in 3 or more places, dressed in different clothes. Often, when I see a doctor, whatever is bothering me seems to run and hide. Not this time. Why?

 

Some might say the body has its own wisdom, and that’s certainly true. But it doesn’t help me very much. Even worse, the high level of pain continued, on and off, for a day or two afterwards. Did this occur because I was trying to understand the doctor’s recommendations for treatment? And with the pain so clear, it was easier for me to analyze what might be the best way to proceed?

 

Understanding the more subtle messages our body-mind constantly gives us can be tricky.

We are often more concerned with comfort or security than truth, or with preserving an old viewpoint than checking its accuracy. Recognizing contradictions in our beliefs and beloved stories is not always at the forefront of our minds. But all views are fragile. They’re intellectual constructs, and once created, we might be tempted to treat them as prized possessions, or personal works of art. We must be careful not to cover the walls and windows of our intellectual home with them so they’re all we see.

 

One book I love is The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin by Idries Shah. The character of Nasrudin, with his humor and deep insight reminds me of stories from the Zen, Taoist, Desert Fathers, and other traditions. One famous story might be relevant here. Nasrudin illustrates how we often search for answers in the wrong places.

 

A man saw Nasrudin searching on the ground and asked, “What have you lost, Mulla?”

“My key.”

The man went down on his knees and they both got involved searching for it.

After several minutes, the other man asked: “Where exactly did you lose it?”

“In my own house.”

“Then why’re you looking here?”

“There is more light here.”

 

Muscles, senses don’t speak in words; but they’re an inherent part of the thinking process. In making decisions or thinking critically, questioning assumptions, researching with multiple reliable sources, and thinking logically are all important. And so is self-reflection, mindfully reading ourselves and pausing before final judgment, maybe by taking a walk, sleeping on it, or taking a breath or two.

 

An awareness of our internal and external, moment by moment sensations helps us better discern when we and our thinking feels “off.” When we feel a clenching in our stomach, a rush to judgment in our breath, or a grimace in our face we might be lying to ourselves.

 

We might become aware of how our perceptions and emotions are constructed in stages….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

An Experiment We Perform on Ourselves: Our Heart is Shaped Not Just by What Happens to Us, But the Stories We Create About What Happens

 

I felt very anxious today, like so many other people I know. Anxiety is becoming a national malady. Years ago, if someone said they felt very anxious about the state of the world, it was often considered “not normal,” as an indication of underlying pain, trauma; of a psychological or medical state contributing to the person being “overly” sensitive to social-political conditions. Not anymore. Now, we’re all facing some degree of trauma. If someone doesn’t feel anxious, it might be considered not normal.

 

And I decided I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to spend this whole election year so anxious it interferes with enjoying my life.  So, I resolved to do experiments on myself. To try different mindfulness, artistic, and other practices to see what really works to help me feel some joy along with the fright. To notice, “if I do this, then that occurs.”

 

I’m not so much in a search for something like an idea of a desired goal, but for how to turn the light inward to create an awareness of what’s already there and perceive all that lies beyond it. The former creates a distance between me and the goal, now and some possibly future time. The latter involves an awareness, a curiosity about what’s intimately there, in myself. Now. To be present. This curiosity fosters clarity of mind and a readiness to act.

 

I realize that to even do such an experiment, I need to keep reminding myself that anxiety might even be helpful if I could interpret it as helpful.  If I could allow it to simply wake up awareness and be mindful of it. To try to hide it away adds fear to the emotion. Susan Murphy, in her book A Fire Runs Through All Things:  Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis, points out our anxiety is one way the world tells us it needs something from us; and that what is needed is “already forming.”

 

But it can get heavy when I allow it in. Anxiety can take over my attention. Letting go can be difficult. So, I started periodically stopping what I’m doing and saying to myself, “hello, universe. Hello moment.”

 

I also notice that when I feel anxious, I think nothing will work. When I feel good, there are so many possibilities. So, what often works for me?

 

I close my eyes. Stand still where I am; and feel my breathing. Sometimes, I do a “square breath practice,” which entails counting to 3 for each exhalation, each pause, inhalation, pause. This develops focus, clears the mind and heart, to do nothing else but feel the breath. Without trying, I let go, for a moment or ten. But even for one moment, the chain of fear, of rumination stops. And I learn a valuable lesson: I can be free. I can feel what clarity is like and be it.

 

But my basic practice is breath counting, a simple practice of curiosity. Many traditions teach it. And I find it usually works for me. I sit in a quiet room, on a supportive chair, eyes maybe closed, open, or partly open. Hands resting in my lap. And I breathe in and do nothing else; then breathe out and say to myself “one.” My attention is placed, as completely as I can, on breathing the count. Not hurrying to get to another number, not pushing aside any thought or feeling. But just being there with one breath. Aware of that moment of breath counting, present with whatever is there. And if I lose the count, and I do it often, I just notice it and return to “one.”

 

Something indescribable, sort of like a clear blue sky, arises when I do this. Paradoxically, it’s also sort of what’s always there, except in the forefront instead of animating the background. If words do come to me, they’re like trees simply observed. Emotions that arise are like wind. They’re there, but do not possess me. Then there’s a pause; then a breath in. Then a count of “two.” This counting continues until I get to “ten,” and then goes back to “one.”

 

But breath meditations don’t feel right for everyone. We all need to experiment for ourselves.

 

Years ago, I learned another meditation, using artwork as a focus, or a natural object, like a pinecone or stone. This is based on an exercise I first learned from psychologist Lawrence LeShan. One object I found particularly fun and wonderful was a painting of a Buddha on a piece of slate.  It’s a copy of an old painting discovered on a cave wall in Asia. It came with a metal holder, so I could place it on a small table in front of me and sit with it.

 

After taking a few breaths, sometimes with my eyes closed, I then open my eyes and look at the whole piece. Allow my eyes to flow over it. To not only see it but feel it. To welcome it. I then shift and look at specific points in the painting, or the stone. One segment at a time. Slowly. After a few minutes, I then close my eyes and bring up the whole artwork. See it in my mind. Then see details, one after another. Then I open my eyes and enjoy it anew. I look at the details, to see if or what I had forgotten or not seen the first time. When I do this, I feel like I’m in that cave with the Buddha.

 

Sitting with a work of art, or a waterfall, stream, the ocean or a lake, a tree or mountain…..

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Noticing the Rhythm of Life: What, if Anything, can we Ever Hold on to?

Breathe in. Notice a pause.

 

Breathe out. Notice.

 

Such a basic rhythm. Ever notice the urge to hold that inbreath? Keep it still? Remember it?

 

When I’m walking or meditating and a crow or mourning dove calls ⎼ or all the voices in my head go silent and I feel rooted where I am, so calm ⎼ sometimes I feel an urge to hold that moment. Stop everything. Or we’re in our car and hear the music we most love, we might try to extend the listening forever. We hear our best friend’s voice or hear the “I love you” we’ve been yearning for ⎼ or we smell the aroma of our favorite food or see a sunrise that shatters the dark, or have an insight ⎼ how do we hold that? Can we hold onto that? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

 

We want something pleasant, good, beautiful to last; but it doesn’t. We can feel so focused as we inhale. So alive. And then we breathe out and it’s gone. The urge to make a moment last ⎼ to turn a disappearing sight, sound, feeling into a permanent one ⎼ is something we all sometimes experience. But before we realize it, the moment has passed.

 

We want to feel young. We want our life to last. Then arthritis breathes us in. Pain breathes us in. Or we breathe in and dislike the feeling, the memory. Or we fear it.

 

Sometimes, we want the exhalation to last. We want to push away the inhale; but what we push away somehow always bounces back. Hate is one form the pushing away can take; denial, fear and pain are others. We can also breathe out and let it go, happily or not.

 

We live moment by moment. But if we try to study any moment by attempting to keep it still, then it’s gone. We can’t even find the moment because as soon as we notice it, it’s already passed. Or we‘ve lost it by trying to hold it. Like picking a flower to keep it always with us, and we thereby kill it. We breathe in; holding it can feel so calming, momentarily. Then we come to a point where we must let it go or we suffocate ourselves.

 

Daniel Kahneman, in his wonderful book Thinking Fast and Slow, talks about experiments showing that people prefer to have a good memory of an event over having the lived experience be wonderful. In one experiment, Kahneman and colleagues asked volunteers to endure three episodes of submerging their hands in freezing cold water. In the first, they put one hand in water that was painfully cold but not intolerable for 60 seconds. In the second, with the other hand, they repeated the experience of 60 seconds of painfully cold water. But this time, for an additional 30 seconds, the experimenter allowed some warmer water into the tub.

 

A few minutes after the two trials, the participants were given a choice of which experience would be repeated. 80% of the participants chose the second, despite it being longer. It was the end they remembered most clearly, which was only slightly less painful.

 

Likewise, he asks us to imagine we face an extremely painful operation during which we are conscious. However, we are promised an amnesia-inducing drug that will completely wipe out any memory of the pain. Most people, he conjectures, are fine with that. They consider what he calls the remembering self as more important than the experiencing self….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to the Good Men Project.

When I Was Blessed by A Crow: We Soar on Wings We Never Knew We Had, into A Sky We Never Knew Existed

Were you ever blessed by a crow?

 

When I was around 13 or 14, I started playing tackle football on a sandlot team. We played in a park less than a mile from my home. For three years, a crow used to come to the practices and for almost every game. We sometimes fed it. But mostly, it was just there, hopping around, watching, and we began to think of him, her, them as a friend. I never had the superstition that crows meant misfortune, but rather I associated them with good fortune. A blessing from nature.

 

If, when walking, sitting, or standing somewhere, ruminating⎼ lost in thought amidst the noises or silence around us⎼ and a crow flies above us, its harsh call can save us. We can listen, and then silence arrives as if summoned. Other times, the call comes so intermittently we can barely stay with it. But if we can accept its offer, however brief, and listen closely, our attention is re-awakened. We open to whatever is there in that moment.

 

It’s like hearing a friend call to us, or a voice from a dream, or from deep inside our bones. It comes to us, and we can fly into it. We can fly into a sound so full it makes room for everything. And then we soar on wings we never knew we had into a sky we never knew existed⎼ a sky so empty it welcomes us home.

 

Or if we allow ourselves to feel the life of a crow, or maybe anything, to feel that it feels life, feels wind and rain as we do⎼ or maybe differently, but just as crucially, and then we become more alive. It’s so tricky to let go of ourselves and our concerns, our schedules, our anything, or the theatre of our lives. Crows can be a blessing to us all.

 

But it’s not the only call we can focus on. When we meditate, natural sounds like the speech of crows, or chickadees, the rain, wind, or ocean⎼ or the sight of a waterfall or smell of a honeysuckle, or an artwork, anything we find beautiful⎼ can give us something to disappear into. If we welcome it, listening to the calls of whatever we find beautiful can be a wonderful way to let worry and anxiety fly away, leaving a clear sky, or mind, behind.

 

I’ve read meditation teachers advising us to find the emptiness before a thought. That’s so difficult. And I don’t know how much crows think or hold thoughts, or whether they’re adept at finding the emptiness before thought. I do know they are incredibly smart. I once wrote a blog about 3 crows who often visited my yard. I’ve tried to take their picture. But even though I’m inside the house, if I pass a window, they follow me with their eyes. If I just look, they look back. Or they simply eat. But if I pick up a camera, they know. They fly. And when I allow it, the crows fly me to silence. They reflect to me different shapes of myself, exposing who or what is watching, or doing the watching….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Touching Life in All Its Forms: Summer, Walking, and Treating Living as Learning

I so enjoy spring and summer. Despite the drought this spring, and the continual rains that have so far marked the summer, I feel like I’m once again a child on vacation. I hear the song “Summertime” in my head, and feel that every day I can play, do something new, create, get together with friends. Everything is so alive. In both spring and summer, so many birds, peepers, cicadas, etc. speak up, and seem to speak to me.

 

So, taking a walk during the summer or spring, in any natural setting, or in the blocks or parks of a city, immerses us in this beauty. It can be a meditation if we bring full attention to it. We don’t need to do a formal walking meditation. We just walk normally, and let the exercise remind us it’s not just what we do that determines how we feel, but how much awareness we bring to it.

 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, two things I’ve been doing even more frequently than before is reading about and practicing meditation, and taking long walks or hikes. And I’ve found a few things that increase the joy I have when walking. One particular reading that inspired me was Old Path White Clouds, the Story of the Buddha, by the revered Zen teacher and activist Thich Nhat Hanh. It was recommended by a friend and co-worker. The book gives us a wonderful insight into the deep history of meditation and mindfulness practice.

 

In the book, the Buddha is described as walking “just to enjoy the walking, unconcerned about arriving anywhere at all…[not] anxious or impatient… [T]heir steps were slow, balanced, peaceful…yet they covered a good distance each day.”

 

I’d like to walk like this. How did the Buddha and followers do this? One method described was making a moment of walking a moment of practice and potential insight, “observing each breath,” step, and part of the breath. In other writings, Thich Nhat Hanh explicates further how to be at one with the walking, so we notice the whole universe walking together.

 

It’s so easy to get distracted or lost in thoughts or worries, or to lose awareness of where we are. So, whatever reminds us to pay attention to where are, who we’re with, what our body-mind is telling us, can help our overall sense of well-being.

 

Even before we start, we can stop. Close our eyes partly or fully, and just greet our body, be aware of what’s going on right now. Or we feel our feet on the earth, or the pace and depth of breath, how tense or relaxed are our shoulders and belly. Then we walk.

 

Walking, the capacity for upright, bipedal movement, is, after all, a major defining characteristic of being human. It can be great fun when we do it just to do it and it’s not solely a means of transporting us from where we are to where we aren’t. Or we don’t do it only to meet exercise goals recorded by devices like a fitbit or apple watch or satisfy societal created images.

 

Such motivations can lead us to walk only to get it done, to check off a box in an accomplishment ledger. This focuses us on the future, and we miss what’s here, now. And 10,000 steps can seem a lot; one step can be simple and easy….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.