Walking meditation
Meditation in itself is the ability to concentrate and to center deeply inside oneself.
Meditation can also be to center ones awareness on the environment and its beauty. Meditation can be the ability to concentrate on one thing only, may it be the breath an object, a thought or sentence, may it be moving or still.
Meditation can also be described as prayer.
Music and sounds –i.e. the wind, waves, or leaves of trees- can also lead us into deep meditation.
There are also laughter, dance and free movement meditations.
Many meditations are done sitting down in a certain position or different positions, often with your eyes closed
All have to do with controlling ones mind and centering in oneself.
It takes practice and patience to reach the point that I can control my thoughts, emotions, and physical body, as easy as it may sound.
One of the meditations I have enjoyed is the walking meditation, which is obviously done with your eyes open – at least at the beginning - , since you have to be aware of your surroundings. It focuses on physical sensations and feelings. Makes you aware of your mental and emotional states of mind and brings into focus what is being noticed (or overlooked) while moving.
There are different stages we pass through while in walking meditation
- Awareness of the body still and in movement
- Awareness of the feeling which can be triggered by a number of sensations like sounds smells pain, etc
- Awareness of mental state, boredom, calmness or clutter of thoughts and how these states change all the time
- Conscious awareness and handling of mental and emotional state
Another aspect of meditative walking is the technique that concentrates on the road rather than the fact that my body is moving.
The technique makes the road beneath you move almost like a treadmill, while you accommodate your feet to do the movements of walking. This gives the sensation of standing in place while the world moves by. The only things I have to do are watching and observing it - and myself in it -.
This experience leaves me refreshed rather than tired after an hour of walking.
Meditative walking is done for an hour in the hills surrounding Ein Hod and is open to all groups of all sizes (between 10 to 25 people).
There is an explanatory period of about 30 minutes prior to the walking meditation.
The meditation can be done by all ages starting from the age of 7 yrs. Children groups should be accompanied by a number of grown-ups to make the experience work and not turn into an exercise of discipline only.
Please contact Dr. Tina Berkovits for cost of the meditation walk.
0 5 4 - 4 3 8 1 4 9 1. tinabster@gmail.com
http://www.wildmind.org this is a good site for some who want to read more about walking meditations.
http://www.buddhanet.net/xmed7.htm this shows a different aspect of the walking meditation
http://yogateacher.com/text/meditation/on-line/walking.html about walking meditation
http://www.innerself.com/Meditation/walking_10102.htm more philosophy
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