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Girl walking on grass field

Frank Answers About Walking Meditation

We are in the middle of summer. It is a prime time for walking outdoors if the heat from our warming planet isn’t prohibitive. More people die from heat than from any other weather condition. Nevertheless, walking is also good for our health, for digestion, and for clearing our minds. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Rousseau preferred to reflect during their travels, usually walking.

Taking a long walk soothes the soul by focusing on the present. Moving one leg in front of the other becomes a form of mantra, similar to the repetitive chanting of OM.. A Stanford University study comparing people walking in urban environments with those who walked in nature found that the latter had decreased levels of anxiety. Our experience of nature can influence the regulation of emotions. Many prayer traditions, such as litanies, are walking prayers.

This is also a time of the year for pilgrimages. July 25 is the feast day of St. James, and many pilgrims walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostello in Spain to arrive at the Cathedral that houses the saint’s relics. I have friends from around the world who do this walk. There are actually six different routes that lead to Santiago de Compostello that are different lengths and difficulty. Here are pilgrims walking the Camino.

Those who log about 25km a day for a dozen days will be rewarded in the Cathedral of Santiago with the sight of the giant botafumeiri (incense burner) swinging the length of the two transcepts and filling the house with smoke. (Sorry, as I liturgist I couldn’t resist showing the readers this wonderful instrument, installed in 1593.)

In any event, a pilgrmage is a walking meditation. The pilgrims enjoy good camaraderie along the way meeting fellow pilgrims from around the world.

As for the more mundane practice of a walking meditation, a reader once asked me this question.

Question: You’ve written about meditating naked. I might like to try meditation naked, but I find that it is difficult to sit or kneel in one position for very long because my joints become stiff, and it can become painful. I’ve heard of walking meditation, which might be better suited for me. I find when I’m walking that I do a lot of thinking. Can you say something about walking meditation?

Frank answers: Before I answer about walking meditation, let me comment about meditation while sitting. In the Yoga-sutras of Patanjali the pose (asana) served the purpose of stilling the body so that meditation could take place. The breath (prana) aids the body in its posture. Yoga teachers are always reminding us to breathe (inhale/exhale) when we are moving into or holding poses. One day when we were holding a strong pose—I don’t remember which one—my body was aching as I tried to hold the pose. At my teacher’s usual prompting about the breath, I began to breathe in and out as evenly as I could while holding the pose and suddenly the physical discomfort diminished. What made the difference? I had focused on the breath and not my resistance and struggle—just what my teachers had been telling me to do. I surrendered to the pain rather than continuing to fight against it and my body responded by relaxing. I could hold the pose at least longer as I focused my mind on the breath instead of on my aching limbs. It was an experience of insight, maybe even of enlightenment, about the body.

If you are sitting in some version of the lotus pose (padmasana), remember that the seated pose is as much an asana as a standing pose. Remember too that pain in your body is somehow tied up with your mind. Very often the physical pain we experience is a reflection of our mental state— a mental state characterized by ambition and aggression toward our body. I think to myself, “By God, I’m going to hold this pose as long as I can just to prove to myself (and maybe to the teacher) that I can do it.” My mental attitude is defeating me. In meditation we are told to focus on the breath when we become distracted. We can become distracted by our thoughts, but also by the pain of sitting in one position for too long. The answer to both bothersome interferences with meditation is to return to the breath.

Half lotus pose

Having said that, let us also realize that our body is our early warning system, signaling us when our ambition is leading us to ignore and override the limitations of our physical situation. The body has its own intelligence, and it can’t be fooled. A relatively mild message might be a pain in our neck or a sore back after a day when we are awash in the tensions of life or sitting in concentrated bad posture too long at the computer. If focusing on the breath cannot ease our physical posture, we simply need to change the posture.

Now about walking meditation. Like sitting meditation, it is based on a posture—the standing pose or mountain pose (tadasana). Before setting off on a walk, just stand in the mountain pose. Feel the sensation of standing with your feet planted onto the ground parallel with each other. Let the rest of the body rise up from the feet and the legs which are grounded into the earth. The spine should be straight, the head on top of the spinal column, the shoulders at ease with the arms hanging down the sides of the body or in prayer position over the heart. Lift up the right foot, placing the weight on the left; then lift up the left foot, placing the weight on the right. Return to a balanced center. This is what will happen when walking. You will be in a moving mountain pose. As you practice taking steps also regulate your breath to coordinate with your steps. Before setting off you should feel any areas of tension or tightness and, if you do, try breathing into them.

Mountain pose

You will be meditating while walking. You can walk at any pace. Walking meditation does not require only a slow walk. You could walk briskly, as if marching—or walk at your normal pace. The idea is to walk mindfully. That requires quieting the mind. You could do that by focusing on the walking—thinking “left/right, left/right” as you take your steps. You could focus on the breath while walking. How many steps can you take while inhaling/exhaling? You could swing your arms in opposite directions to your legs while taking steps and focus on coordinating steps with arm swings and breathing. After a while you can just let the body continue moving on its own and focus on the object of your meditation. If your mind gets distracted, you can return your focus to the body’s movements and the breath.

The speed at which you walk is not important. Most walking meditations are done at a slow gait. However, what I had said about walking meditation also applies to running, as many runners have attested.

You can walk for the sake of walking, without going anywhere in particular. Like the questioner I also find that I can resolve mental issues while walking. But I can also clear my mind of all issues and focus just on walking and being alive. I love to walk along a beach and just sense the sand under my feet and sometimes stepping into the water and feeling the early light and warmth of the sun.

You walk in order to get somewhere. But you can also come back to a standing pose in a meadow or on a beach or in the forest and sense your natural surroundings before moving on.

This man receives a forest bathing in the Japanese practice.

Since walking meditation is usually outdoors, it is an opportunity to sense your surroundings. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? What are you smelling? What are you tasting? (No need to eat anything, but taste is often connected to smell.) What are you touching? This is aided if you are barefoot and touching the ground or even brushing your bare body with plants.

I will mention some walking meditations that have a destination while at the same time allowing you to focus on your subjective thoughts: the labyrinth and pilgrimage.

The spiral of the labyrinth is a time-honored tool for meditation. Medieval cathedrals sometimes had labyrinths. They have been popular on retreat center grounds. The labyrinth is not a maze, where you can get lost. It has one way in and one way out. The object is to get to the center and out again. Start at the starting point by getting into your standing pose, folding your hands over your heart, and making an intention. Walk slowly through the labyrinth until you arrive at center. What is this center to you? What is the center of your life? Christians would think that the center of our lives, our devotion, is God. Pause at the center to consider what your center is? Then walk the path that gets you out of the labyrinth. Again, pause to ask how where experience of coming to your center will lead you out in the world.

Labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral

Pilgrimages are practiced in all religions. Christians have been going on pilgrimages since the early centuries. The destination is a holy site. You have to walk to get to that destination. Sometimes you are walking for days. You may walk alone or with a group. Chances are that even if you are walking alone you will end up in a group and bonding with fellow pilgrims will take place. On the way they recite or chant psalms and hymns and stop for prayers as well as meals, rest, or sleep. As they reach their destination pilgrims will often walk barefooted to the final site of the shrine, chanting psalms and litanies and singing hymns. Pilgrimages are a body-focused walking meditation. The body is the pilgrim’s, which he offers to the glory of God.

Pilgrimage to Skalholt shrine of St. Thorlak in Iceland

Note that just going to church on Sunday is a pilgrimage. The entrance or gathering rite in the liturgy has elements of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs not unlike the material sung on pilgrimages. The liturgy itself will center in the word of God and the Eucharistic meal, just like the termination of pilgrimages in the shrine. It begins with the intention of getting your body to the worshiping assembly.

The popular devotion of the Stations of the Cross is also a body-focused walking meditation. The body is Christ’s, portrayed in scenes depicting his way of the cross, crucifixion, and death. These scenes may be erected along the aisles of a church building or strung out along a path or a road. The way of the cross can be like a pilgrimage. One walks from station to station alone or in a group. The hymn Stabat mater is sung between stations and a Gospel text and prayers are read at each station. The body is Christ’s, which he offers for the redemption of humanity.

Outdoor stations of the cross devotion on Good Friday

Some of these walking meditations may not be what the questioner had in mind. But I mention them to indicate that various kinds of processions are also walking meditations that have been practiced by Christians for centuries. I discuss some of them in my book, Embodied Liturgy: Lessons in Christian Ritual (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016). They are ways of experiencing in our bodies the our journey through this world in company with others..

Rogation progression on the days before the Feast of the Ascension of Christ, which usually occurs in May

Many Westerners assume that meditation is a “spiritual” phenomenon, which is usually taken to mean that it somehow has to do with getting beyond the physical into the mind. As Christianity recovers its incarnational spirituality and as yoga practitioners claim the Tantric roots of Hatha Yoga, meditation should lead us into a deeper engagement with our physical bodies and with the physical world all around us. In this regard I recommend the book by the Buddhist teacher of meditation Reginald A. Ray, Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2008, 2014).

Walking meditation puts us into direct touch with the physical world, the natural world of which we are a part. A slow barefoot walk through the woods or across a grassy field or along a beach can enable us to connect directly with the ground and become grounded. Our body’s electromagnetic field gets recharged with Earth’s electromagnetic field.

A walking meditation could involve climbing a mountain. This puts you very close to the ground. I know an Icelandic pastor who leads a mountain climbing meditation on Sunday afternoons.

Icelandic mountain climbing meditation

This young man has climbed to a mountaintop in Hawaii. From that position he can sense the solid rock on which he stands, the energizing breeze of the wind blowing across his body, feel the warmth of the sun, listen to the sounds around him, and breathe in the smells. On such a perch try closing your eyes to take in these sensations, and then open your eyes wide and enjoy the vista.   

As you walk, stop to pay attention to the nature around you. Reconnect with it.

Finally, at the end of your walk, just rest on the ground and reconnect with the earth that has supported your walk.

Pastor Frank

Frank Senn

I’m a retired Lutheran pastor. I was in parish ministry for forty years and taught at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for three years. I've been an adjunct professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. Since my retirement in 2013 I've also taught courses at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, and Carey Theological College in Vancouver. I have a Ph.D. in theology (liturgical studies) from the University of Notre Dame.