Orientation for the Retreat

Joshua Tree 4

28-Feb-09

Bhante Vimalaramsi

Extract on Walking Meditation

Now, walking meditation: Do not put your attention on your feet; stay with your spiritual friend. Keep radiating loving-kindness to your spiritual friend while you’re walking. The walking is for exercise, to get your blood flowing. Now one thing that happens in retreat and it’s very frustrating to me but I can’t get people to stop doing it, is you’ll be sitting on the floor and you say, “Well, I’m uncomfortable.” And it’s been forty-five minutes or an hour or something like that, and then you get up off the floor, and you sit in the chair. Don’t do that. The walking meditation is every bit as important as the sitting meditation. If you get up from the floor and just go to a chair and sit, what happens is your mind starts to dull out. Because you haven’t got your circulation going so well. The walking meditation, you don’t have to do it super slow, walk at a normal pace, but stay with your spiritual friend. Now, at first the walking meditation is going to be somewhat difficult because you’re not used to it. And you’re used to walking around, walk from here over to there, you’re used to thinking this and thinking that and ho-humming around. So the walking meditation is a very important aspect to help break old habits of thinking while you’re walking instead of radiating loving-kindness while you’re walking. Now I want to keep your meditation going from the time of your sitting, getting up, going outside, keep your meditation on your spiritual friend. Walk no less than fifteen minutes. When your walking is good, you can walk longer. OK? You can walk up to forty-five minutes; I don’t think any longer than that is really useful. You get tired after that.

So after you do your walking you stay with your spiritual friend, come in, sit again. Now I want everybody to understand that I want you sitting no less, and this is sitting, not just sitting and walking—just sitting, no less than six hours a day. Which is not a lot.

Transcript prepared by Uma Sarason
April 2009

Text last edited: 18-Apr-09