Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

October 24, 2015 By Admin

Mindful Walking Meditation

Mindful Walking Meditation:

How to Walk by Thich Nhat Hanh – A Powerful Short Book of Wisdom

In my opinion, Thich Nhat Hanh and The 14th Dalai Lama are the two most important and wise teachers of mindfulness, meditation, compassion, and Buddhism in the 21st century.  Below I will offer my interpretation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s new book. At the same time, I will attempt to distill thich-nhat-hanh_MindfulHappinesshis wise instructions about how to walk.  The post will end with a short segment on formal walking meditation.  My agenda here, is to write my comments so they may be useful to both lay and Buddhist practitioners.


Part 1: The Basics of Walking with Mindfulness

Here we’ll review instructions on how to make any walk a mindful walk.  Settle in and take a few calmer, slower, deeper breaths.  Use your intention to prepare yourself for walking.  As you lift your foot, inhale; as you place your foot (heal first) on the earth, exhale.  Remain silent – just breathe and walk.  Deeply appreciate the solid mother earth under you.  Focus complete attention on the act of walking, thus relieving your mind of the need to think, evaluate, associate,tell stories, etc.  Concentrate fully on the present moment of touching the earth.  You arrive with each step. Allow mind to follow body with breath – feel your inner peace and joy.  Adding a peaceful smile may improve your Mindful Walking ; Mindful Happinessexperience of “just walking.”  Reflect on your gratitude for your moving legs, beating heart, working lungs and being on solid ground.  Allow your walking body to liberate your mind from the incessant tangles of daily life.  Bring your attention back to focused walking each and every time your mind wonders off into something/somewhere else. Notice your inner peace – feel it gently.  Value and respect it. Give great appreciation for your bodhisattva ways (helping others).  You may want to imagine that you are walking with the Buddha’s fee – being one with the Buddha.  Be one with the peace and joy of walking slowly, effortlessly, lovingly. Walk this way more often at work, at home, outdoors, etc. (See pages 1-50 for more details.)

Part 2: More Details and Depth on How to Walk

Notice great ease as you allow your breath to lead your walking body.  Continue to concentrate of how the moving body/legs feel; this will reduce distractions in the mind. You may walk alone, with others, or imagining others are with you (ancestors, friends, people you love, the Buddhas, etc.).  Feel their wonderful energies. Walk in honor of them and mother earth, and all those who have walked here before you.  Since enlightenment and nirvana cannot be understood as mental concepts or perceptions, just allow the body to walk in mutuality with the breath, the mind, the earth. Bring full mindful attention to the feelings of walking; be the awareness – stay present and return your mindful awareness if/when it moves away.  No past, and no future – just the present moment “here now.” Notice internally – there may be subtle or strong feelings of deep peace, compassion, and wisdom – even possibly love.  As you walk, observe, feel, and appreciate everything that appears in the present moment of movement. Allow yourself to forget the past and the future – the past cannot be changed, and the future gives you little control over it.  While walking adopt the Buddha’s view that practice is non-practice and attainment is non-attainment. Be effortless! Just walk – BE the moving body, the quiet mind, the inner peace, the silent joy.  (See pages 51-97 for more details.)

Part 3: More Formal Walking Meditation

Building from the earlier parts of this post, prepare your intention for formal walking meditation practice. Complete a few calm, slow, deep breaths. Place hand/arms in front, behind, or by your sides. Hold your head level and allow a gentle gaze 2-3 feet in front of you. Pay close attention to walkingmeditaion_mindfulhappinessthe feelings in the body – lifting the leg inhale then placing the leg on solid earth exhale. Breathe the movement, peace, and joy – all in unison. If/when your mind distracts or goes elsewhere, gently and lovingly bring your focus back to just walking. No self-criticism. Be silent! Smile! Count your breaths if it helps.  It will be more relaxing if you extend the exhalations slightly longer than the inhalations. This will activate your vagal nerve network and bring more calmness. You may want to add a brief mantra to your walking: “May I breathe and walk in peace.”  Other phrases may help:  “in and out,” “deep and silent,” “I smile and let go,” or “my wonderful present moment.”  Make up what you want to say if helpful, or say nothing.  Just concentrate on feelings of movement and touching the earth. Slow down; speed up.  Walk at the pace you desire. Do what work best for you.  Bring breath, mind, body, joy and self together – fully integrated in the act of walking meditation.  Take personal refuge in your walking.  Attend to the outside, but feel the inside. Be the walking; be the peace; be the joy! Hold strong gratitude for your walk, and appreciate all aspects of this meditation practice.

For best experiences, consider walking meditation outside in the natural environment.

Be like the Taoists; be in nature’s beauty.  Enjoy! (See pages 99 – 117) for more details.)

Nhat Hanh, Thich (2015). How to Walk. Berkeley,CA: Parallax Press.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

CLICK HERE  or any image blow to Order 

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: Book Review, Featured, Nhat Hanh Thich, People, Walking Meditation Tagged With: BOOK REVIEW, DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, HOW TO WALK, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, MINDFUL WALKING, NHAT HANH THICH, WALKING MEDITATION

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Quintiliani’s Whole Person Recovery Planning To me the “whole person recovery planning” includes biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and self components and changes. To simplify – it is not simple or quick – I will simply list the core components of this comprehensive form of recovery process.  I may add more details to this process in […]

Psychoanalytic Gems – Even More D. W. Winnicott has made significant clinical contributions to both building therapeutic alliance and maintaining a positive, helpful focus in psychotherapy. Below I have noted various approaches to use in your therapy.  Use of these “gems” requires considerable knowledge and skill by the therapist.  Here is the list: Respect the […]

Tantric Meditation on Emptiness of Self Mind training on emptiness of self requires single-pointed attention and concentration on space, empty space. Emptiness awareness in equipoise of meditation appears as the empty of space. When we practice this repeatedly with calm abiding we can attain direct experience of non-conceptual realization – true emptiness. Awareness of emptiness […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Trauma Therapy:  Basics from Some Expert Clinicians For many years trauma therapist have used many approaches in their psychotherapy. Most of these approaches lack strong empirical support for outcomes, and are often the “favorites” of these therapists.  One might wonder what benefits therapists derive from using approaches that are not evidence-based. If an intervention fails […]

Looking at Early Judeo-Chrsitian Meditation Practice An early description of enlightened liberation in Buddhist meditation practice reads like this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being.  Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness […]

Attitudes of Gratitude Thoughts and Applications M. J. Ryan presents some interesting practices in the book, Attitudes of Gratitude (1999).  Here are some ideas. Hope you will practice some of them soon. As The 14th Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh suggest, we should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what […]

Meditation for Managers and Helpers  Let’s Talk – Contact Me – Click Here I am a Licensed Psychologist-Doctorate and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 35 years of clinical experience in community clinics, schools, professional organizations, and universities (OSU, UVM, etc.). I have been the past Clinical Director of Howard Center, and Past President […]

Breathing Practices and Emptiness Here I will introduce you to five breathing practices, each one moving progressively closer and closer to emptiness/no-self experiences. Do your best to remain open in these practices. Notice the feel of your posture. Once comfortable notice your breath as it is. Relax and close your eyes if ok. Rest your […]

Vipassana Meditation Practice – Introductory Journey 1 This is the first of a series of posts on vipassana-based meditation practices.  The introductory journey set will not be pure vipassana; rather this set of meditations will be about practice with core principles and learning experiences in regular vipassana meditation. Rather than explain background information, I will […]

Essential Knowledge for Clinical Supervisors This post will include information and skills dealing with research on role induction practices, quality of clinical supervision, psychodynamics of alliance, and progress measurement.  Since the information and skills for all these topics is complex, I will do my best to keep it as clear as possible. This information aims […]

Meditation at the Deepest Levels In 2007 M. A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, opened up a whole new, deeper perspective on why consciousness or pure awareness is the root of self. Even in a Buddhist  “no-self” view, Singer’s inquiries leave us with a great deal to unravel.  Here are some reasons why […]

Mindfulness Expands the Art of Journal Writing T. Merton, J. Kerouc, I. Progoff, J. Upton, and others have helped to expand the art or journal writing practice.  This type of practice can become your mindfulness practice.  You will need to write on a daily basis (even if briefly), and you will need to be highly […]

Relapse Prevention Plans – The Basics T. T. Gorski, Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The following information about how to develop effective relapse prevention plans has been paraphrased from the Work of Terrence T. Gorski.  It is highly practical and a concrete way to develop your skills in relapse prevention interventions. Intermediate (Marlatt and Gordon) […]

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness A core problem for many people is their incessant self (or other) criticism. This is a major part of our psychological mind suffering today. In the past life for most people was more difficult, so human basic needs were the energized priorities; today so many of us have been […]

Meditation on Gratitude – Why it is so Important The daily rapid vibrations from our fast-paced and sometimes dangerous world may impact us in ways that make unhealthy norms of being. The struggle to feel good enough, to have enough, to be somebody, to keep up with the raging ads about what you need NOW and […]

Meditation for Health Improvement It is estimated that between 10 and 15 million Americans participate in some form of regular mindfulness or contemplative practices; secular-based meditation and yoga may be the most common of these practices.  Many others practice tai chi, qi gong, forest-based contemplation, Taoism, etc.  The US National Institute of Health has been […]

Consciousness of Your Emotions Besides common scientific reflections on human emotions – that is neuro-chemical-electrical cellular impulses in response to sensory inputs – our emotional response system includes you and your innermost emotional reactions to both internal and external stimuli (people, places, things, memories, experiences, phenomena). Your mental state in response to sensory contact with […]

Stress In America – How to Deal with it Effectively The American Psychological Association just released the results of its annual stress survey for 2014.  This comprehensive study of stress in America has some serious implications for our health and happiness.  Although self-reported stress levels in many categories are lower than in 2013, the overall […]

Liberation of the True Self Socrates is reported to have noted that “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new.” In Buddhism there are clear relationships between “no-self” and the force of impermanence, that reality that ensures constant change and thus personal […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

WALKING MEDITATION MINDFULNESS VIPASSANA MEDITATION SELF MINDFUL MEDITATION SELF COMPASSION CLINICAL SUPERVISION HAPPINESS ANTHONY QUINTILIANI CONSCIOUSNESS THERAPY. JOURNALING VERMONT EXERCISES ADDICTION MINDFULNESS TRAINING WISE MIND EMPTINESS MINDFUL TRAINING THICH NHAT HANH VIPASSANA MEDITATION MINDFUL HAPPINESS PSYCHOTHERAPY PRACTICES MEDITATION PRACTICE SELF CARE PRACTICE MBSR MINDFUL ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI ACTIVITY BREATHING ACTIVITIES SUFFERING SELF MEDICATION BUDDHISM BRAIN COMPASSION COVID-19 SELF ESTEEM ENLIGHTENMENT TRAINING TRAUMA

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2022 · Mindful Happiness