Meditations on the Trail by Christopher Ives

Author:Christopher Ives
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

Settling into the Rhythm of Walking and Letting Go

I climb the road to Cold Mountain,

The road to Cold Mountain that never ends.

The valleys are long and strewn with stones;

The streams broad and banked with thick grass.

— Hanshan

OVER THE COURSE of human history, some renowned philosophers have done their thinking while walking. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) went for a walk at the same time every day, so consistently that his neighbors reportedly set their clocks when he strolled past their windows. Kitarō Nishida (1870–1945), the most renowned Japanese philosopher of the twentieth century, would walk deep in thought from his home in northeastern Kyoto down to his office at Kyoto University, and his route is now a tourist attraction called the Philosophy Way (Tetsugaku no michi). This has made me wonder what it is that connects walking and thinking. But I’m more interested in how walking can help us not think, how wandering can help us calm and open up our minds.

Perhaps it has to do with the rhythm, like how drumming and dance can induce shamanic trances or simply get our minds off of our worries. Or how, in meditation, paying attention to the repetitive, rhythmic cycle of breathing settles our mind. As we’ve already seen, with walking meditation we can synchronize the rhythm of our breathing with the rhythm of our walking, at least at a slow speed.

I have found that rhythmic walking helps me early in a hike if I’m lost in thought or feeling resistance and late in the hike when I’m sore or depleted and reaching deep to cover the remaining miles back to the car.

Try this.

Pause for a moment and take a few breaths to collect yourself.

If your legs are feeling sore or tight, do some stretching.

Next, focus your intention on keeping your legs moving and maintaining a steady pace and rhythm.

Start walking, and find a pace that you can maintain for a while.

As you walk at that pace, settle into a rhythm. Feel your legs swinging forward: right, left, right, left. You may even want to count your steps: one two three four, one two three four.

Pour yourself into the act of walking with a rhythm while counting your steps. Feel how this makes it easier to let go of whatever worries you brought onto the hike.

If you hit a steep section or need to scramble, adjust your pace but keep counting.

See if you can sustain this for five or ten minutes.

Then, when you stop walking this way, pause, take a few breaths, and savor the inner quiet now that you’ve stopped counting.

This rhythmic counting-walking gives me momentum and takes my mind off of the thoughts in my head or the soreness in my knees.

Try it next time you’re out on the trail and reaching deep to find focus and energy to keep moving forward.

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