← Moving Meditations with Ompractice
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:05]
A
Hello and welcome to this moving meditation with Om practice. My name is Michael Lee and I will be your guide for this experience. So this particular experience is really a basic mindfulness practice, but we use walking as the vehicle. And it's a great vehicle because it's very easy to just be outside, take a walk, and no one even knows you're meditating. So let's try this. I'll get straight into it. So find yourself where you're going to be taking your walk and begin just taking a few steps and getting into a rhythm that feels right for you. So I would really invite you to find your pace, the rhythm that really works for you here. It doesn't have to be fast, it doesn't have to be slow, just any kind of pace that works for your body today. Different days, different paces perhaps, huh? So I'm going to give you a minute or two just to find your pace, settle into your body at a rhythm and a pace that works for you. Okay, so now we've hopefully got that established. The next part of the practice is to tune into your body. So as you walk, just notice your body walking and you'll feel different things. If you tune into the sensations in your body, maybe there's some parts of your body that feels pretty good, feels good to be walking. Maybe there's some parts of your body that not so good. Maybe there's a little stiffness in the old back or something like that, or maybe little kink somewhere that, you know, kind of grabs your attention. So whatever it is, whether it's something wonderful or something, that's a bit of a. Bit of a thing to carry around. Either way, just welcome it, let it be here, let it go for the walk with you. So just give you a minute or two to get comfortable with being with whatever shows up in your body. Here's your body walking, and we're taking the whole body for the walk. Whatever presents, find a way to make it work for your body. You have to adjust a little. That's fine. So now you're comfortable with your body walking, the next thing is to really begin to pay a little more attention to your body. Mindfulness of the body is a great practice. Just being really mindful of this body right here, right now. Sometimes when we go to our body, we like to tell stories about how the body got to be this way. I know for me, as a rather elderly gentleman, I'm sometimes wishing I had the body I had 50 years ago, but not to be. So here's the body I have Let me be with it. Let me be with it now, right here, right now, it's what I got. This body, this moment, right here. So now just feeling the fine tuning movements and sensations in the body, you might notice a little movement in your arms or the way your legs move, or maybe a really good one is your feet hitting the pavement. The connection that your feet are making with the ground beneath you. So each time you take a step, just really feel that along with any other sensations that go with that and happen in your body as you take each step. So just with each step, feeling whatever sensations are generated from that step, this step, whatever pace you're walking, doesn't matter. You can pay attention to each step, feel each step, feel your body with each step. And now as you feel your body, you will also notice that you're breathing as you walk. There's a breath coming and a breath going. So simply begin to notice that breath. Aware of breathing in, aware of breathing out. Notice the breath connecting to your body as you walk. Notice what happens with each step to the breath as you walk. Maybe there's a little synchronization happening, the breathing with the steps. And if that happens, just notice that too. Or if there's not, notice that too. There's no right or wrong here, it's just whatever you experience. So just notice the breath and how the breath connects, however it does, to the act of walking. Breathing, walking, walking, breathing, Breath, step, step, breath. Feeling the breath, feeling the body, body, walking, body, breathing. Nowhere else to go, nowhere else to be. Just here, walking and breathing. Now if there is a synchronization between the breath and the walking, just notice that maybe it's a number of steps to each breath. So as you breathe in, perhaps count how many steps you take without trying to rush it or change it. Just let it be the natural steps. And as you breathe in, count the steps. You can go something like breathe in one, two or whatever. Then try the same with breathing out one, two or whatever. So breathing and counting the steps with each breath, without trying to force it or change it, finding that natural rhythm, the one that's just right for you today. Now let's see if we can put it all together. So remember, we started with feeling the body. So feeling the body again as you walk, as you breathe, and as you synchronize the breath with the body, feeling the body, noticing what's here now, sensations, good feelings, any kinks or quirks. Feeling it all, letting it all be here. And breathing and feeling the breath and noticing the connection between the breath and the body as you walk and adjusting it, however, you need to make it just natural, right place for now to be, right here, right now. This body, this breath, this step. Then I invite you to slow it down a little bit. So we're going to slow down to a stop. But as you slow down, don't do it all of a sudden. Just take your time to gently slow the walking down. Let the breathing go along for the ride, maintaining your awareness of your breath and your body as you slow down. And then coming to a stop, just standing in stillness for a moment. As you stand in stillness, you can either have your eyes open, or if you like, for a moment you can close your eyes, if that feels okay to you where you are. And just feel your body now. Feel your breath now. Feel your presence. Now maybe ask yourself, have I come a little more home to myself through this 10 minutes of walking and breathing? And notice whatever the impact is. How do you feel now? Now, as you prepare to go back into your day, just know that you take perhaps a little more equanimity with you. A little more peace, a little more presence. If anything should come your way that might be a little hard to face or handle, just know you can always pause, take a breath, feel your feet on the floor, take a step back and a step forward. Take a breath, come home to your body, home to this place of refuge. So wherever you are, may you have a wonderful day. And I thank you for letting me share this prayer practice with you today. Thank you.