"Well, I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...."

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, California

Hiya! I just got home from doing walking meditation and benefiting from it for the first time EVVVVERRRRR!

Walking meditation, it sounds so easy: no place to go, no where you have to be, just walk slowly and pay attention to your breath. Um, not so easy for a person who grew up with a pair of runners on her feet, ready to hit the trails at the first signs of trouble. Sitting meditation nourishes me, but walking meditation has always been a challenge--until this morning! To what do I attribute my success?

• My Sangha (Practice Community) - for one month I've facilitated a Mindfulness Practice Group* and we gathered this morning as we do every Wednesday from 7:30-8:30a. Our focus for this coming week is walking meditation, so I arrived home aspiring to start walking meditation anew. I read the few brief pages in our Thich Nhat Hanh book, Happiness, and set out on the trails behind my house. The suggestions were simple: match my steps to my breath and if so inspired, put a few words to the steps. So for instance, my breath was about a 4 step inhalation and 4 step exhalation, I'm a poet, so I went to town:

"I am loved, adored."

"Clean trees, blue sky (we had just had rain so all was sparkly and clean)"

"Fresh pine, happy birds."

I went on like this, in and out, having a high time. By the time I finished, I was invigorated and didn't want to stop! I thought of my Mindfulness Community, all aspiring to practice walking meditation this week, and I felt carried along, bolstered and inspired. There is power in group intention, and I've entered the stream.

I thought to of this month's Inner Constellation theme: Loving-kindness, and how absolutely loving it is to take a walk for the sole purpose of enjoying the offerings of the natural world, so bountiful and always present. When I run or bike, I do it to be outside, but I also do it for the exercise, so there can be a lot of imposed struggle, whereas, my morning walk was for pure enjoyment. Big aha moment--how often am I mindfully present for the pure enjoyment of it! It's a great privilege to be able to live in a beautiful area, take 50 steps from my front door and walk in the pure land of the Sierras. The little ditty from the Proclaimers is running through my cleared head:

"Well, I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more,

just to be the one who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door...."

It's a sweet, quirky song about a guy who just enjoys being with his beloved, no matter what he's doing. It's my walking meditation theme song: be present, enjoy life's offerings for the sake of love, purely love. Ah, the walking muse has spoken....dah, dah, dat-da...un-diddle, un-diddle, un-diddle, un-da-da....

*Join us anytime: Lake Tahoe Mindfulness Community Practice at The Studio Lake Tahoe, Wednesdays from 7:30a-8:30a, by donation. We are committed to using the present moment to nourish ourselves, our families and our community in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn.