Meditation is a practice of presence that you can bring alive in all settings and activities. The formal training in walking meditation can be particularly valuable for helping you to cultivate an awareness of your embodied experience in each moment, allowing you to bring your body, heart, and mind together as you move through life.
Audio below – Tara gives brief (6 minute) walking and standing meditation instructions.
Written Instructions including Question/Responses (PDF)
Alternative practice offered by La Sarmiento on retreat: Something that I want to offer before giving you the formal walking instructions is to bring to mind that we often take for granted that most of us can move – that most of us are mobile.
Some of us, myself included (I have two osteoarthritic knees), are very conscious of every step we take. Assuming that not everybody here can move in the same ways, I’d like to offer a practice for those of you for whom walking meditation may not be appropriate or comfortable.
To start, put your palms face down on your thighs. Notice the contact and take a moment to be present with that sensation of the contact of your hands on your thighs.
Beginning with your right hand, you’re going to go palm up… then lift… palm down… and place. Left palm up… and lift… palm down… place. Right palm up… and lift… right palm down… place. Left up, left down. Right up, right down.
You can continue to do this as your form of walking meditation or movement meditation, if the walking practices are difficult or challenging or painful for you.
