Day 4 – Walking
Let your body take you for a walk.
Normally, you go for a walk, or you walk from a parking place to a shopping mall, or to your office.
Now we will reverse this and let your body find a pace that makes you attentive to your physical experience of walking.
- Feel the sensations of each step.
- Feel the legs and the feet tense as you lift the legs.
- Feel the movement of the leg as it swings through the air.
- Feel the contact of the foot with the ground.
Whenever you notice that the mind has wandered, bring it back to the sensations of the feetwalking.
As an aid to staying present, you can use a quiet mental label for your steps as you walk. The label might be “stepping, stepping” or “left, right. Or “lifting, moving, placing’. Labelling occupies the “thinking mind” with a rudimentary form of thought, so the mind is less likely to wander off. The labelling also points the mind towards what you want to observe. Noting “stepping” helps you to notice the feet. If after a while you notice that you are saying “right” for the left foot and “left” for the right foot, you know that your attention has wandered.
Read more at Insight Meditation Centre
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