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photo courtesy of kumah.org
A wonderful gift yoga brings to the practitioner is the awareness that body and breath are connected and further exploration on that subject will lead the practitioner to experience the connection of the mind and spirit as well.   

A beautiful beginning exercise in fostering that connection of body, breath and mind is a walking meditation.  Walking meditation is profoundly beneficial and has been an exercise used in many traditions.    I will give you two examples of walking meditation to enjoy.  One comes from the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and another from Kundalini Yoga Teacher Gurucharan Singh from his book, Breathwalk.

I saw a video of Thich Nhat Hanh teaching a group of people a walking meditation.  His energy was as if he were standing right next to me.  He spoke of walking meditation and how to accomplish it.

You must walk with no goal.  So, no time frame, no destination.  Taking simple steps that contain happiness and joy.   Walk as if each footstep makes an imprint on the earth.  And within the imprint your foot makes, lies the feelings you hold inside of you.   Do it as if you are the happiest person on the earth! 
Because there is no goal, no destination, walking is not a means but an end itself. 

It is said that when you see with the eyes of the Boddhisattva, you can see within the footprints a person has made how that person felt when he or she made those footprints;  stressed, worried, serene, joyous...

Suppose I had a miraculous power to take you to the pure land of Amida Buddha, or for Christians to The Kingdom of God.  Once there, how would you walk?  Would you walk with sorrow and anxiety?  Would you place sorrow and anxiety upon the land? 

Make steps as if you imprint your foot on the earth and the footprint contains your happiness, joy, serenity, love and peace.  It can be done.  Walk and breath love into each step.  And with each joyous step you make, you create heaven here on earth.  You create the pure land here on earth.

Kundalini Yoga's Gurucharan Singh Khalsa has a technique of walking and breathing with mantra.  The walking can be at any pace, the breath: in 4 counts and out 4 counts.  The way you keep track of the counts is with the mantra Sa Ta Na Ma.
Sa Ta Na Ma can translate to birth, life, death, rebirth. 
On the inhale and with each step you think a syllable: (step) Sa, then (step) Ta, then (step) Na, and then (step) Ma and then exhale and likewise, with each step think a syllable: Sa, Ta, Na. Ma.
It is simple, energizing and renewing. 

Try one or both meditations and note how you feel before, after, during!  Take time to destress and renew your body, mind and spirit each day with breath and movement. And remember to train the mind as well as the body.  For if the mind is untrained and runs wild, then life is dramatic, traumatic and more painful than needs to be.

In Peace,
~Kirsten
 


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