Opening and relaxing until body, mind and world release and fall away.
- Begin walking at a comfortable and relaxed pace.
- Open and soften the vision, taking in the visual field in a relaxed way.
- As you walk, notice sensations related to movement.
- Footfalls, legs moving, arms swinging, clothing touching the body, the air moving across the hands and fingers, etc.
- Using the sensations of movement as an aid, relax any tension that is noticed that gets in the way of natural, released and relaxed movement.
- Expand this practice to include noticing and releasing any tension within the experience of the whole body.
- Expand the practice to include relaxing any tension experienced within the mind, as well as the whole body.
- Let the mind increasingly rest in stillness. Continuously notice, relax and release tension throughout all experience. Let impulses, reactions, and thoughts drift by without acting or mentally moving in relation to them.
Listening to all experience
- Begin walking at a comfortable and relaxed pace.
- Take in the sensations of walking as a pure listener or silent witness
- Pure listening has a feeling of in-flow only, without reaction, response or out-flow of any kind. Employ this feeling as your only role during the walk.
- Expand this “listening” to include any thoughts, actions, decisions, sights, etc. That are experienced during the walk.
- Continually listening to seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and mental experience while walking. Let decisions be made intuitively while simply listening to the experience as it occurs.
- Notice how, since you are only listening to experience, anything that takes place that is not listening cannot be “me”.
- Expand the “listening” further to include not only sensory and mental experience, but any sense of “the listener” as well.
- Live and walk as pure listening.
Mantra and reciting while walking
- Begin walking at a comfortable and relaxed pace.
- Continuously recite a mantra or Amitābha Buddha’s name, once (or one syllable) per each footfall.
- While walking and reciting, follow each syllable or recitation into silence. Observe what each recitation arises out of, and what each recitation ceases back into.
- As the practice gains momentum, recite more and more slowly, leaving more footfalls between each recitation, continually deepening the observation. Where do they come from? Where do they cease into?
- As this gains momentum, adjust the pace so that the next recitation is recited whenever thought or mental activity begins to arise out of silence. After reciting, wait to see when the next recitation should be recited.
- More and more, simply rest within silent awareness that contains each recitation and thought. Allow sensitivity and understanding to develop around this increasingly empty experience.