Part 5 - Walking Meditation

Take the walking meditation seriously. By merely doing walking meditation, one can reach Arahantship! Take the Venerable Subhadda the last Arahant disciple of the Buddha, as an example.

Bring your attention to the foot during walking meditation. Note the movement with sharp awareness. At the beginning, note the step in one part only, mentally note right and left.

Do not close your eyes but keep them half closed, looking ahead about four or five feet.

Do not bend the head too low. This will cause tension and dizziness in a short time. Do not look at your feet. Your mind will get distracted.

When you follow the movement of the foot, you must not lift the feet too high.

The objects to be noted are increased gradually, that is, the number of parts of a step that are observed is gradually increased.

Later one may watch the step in one part about ten minutes, followed by three parts lifting, pushing, lowering. Finally it may be further increased to: - intending, lifting, pushing, lowering, touching, pressing.

Please consider this - within one hour of walking meditation, the mind is sure to wander off quite a few times.

You must not look around here and there during walking meditation. You have had and will have many years to look around. If you do so during the retreat, you say good bye to concentration. Take note of the desire to look around. The wandering eye is a very difficult problem for a yogi.

At least five to six hours each of walking and sitting meditation per day is recommended