Thich Nhat Hanh is a world-renowned writer, poet, scholar and Zen Buddhist monk, who lives mostly in the monastic community he founded in France. The author of the New York Times bestseller Anger and the classic work The Miracle of Mindfulness, as well as numerous other books, he conducts public workshops and peace-making retreats throughout the world. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.
www.plumvillage.org
‘If we focus all our awareness on walking, we stop the thinking, storytelling, blaming and judging that goes on in our heads…This alone is enough to calm the storm.’
Thich Nhat Hanh shows how the everyday act of walking can be an opportunity to diminish depression, recapture wonder and encourage gratitude. Here, he explains how each of our steps has the power to increase our concentration, our insight, and our joy in being alive.
Silence
Anger
Being Peace
Breathe! You Are Alive
Creating True Peace
Fear
Fragrant Palm Leaves
Going Home
The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Living Buddha, Living Christ
The Miracle of Mindfulness
No Death, No Fear
The Novice
Old Path, White Clouds
Peace is Every Breath
Peace is Every Step
Present Moment, Wonderful Moment
The Art of Communicating
The Sun My Heart
Transformation and Healing
True Love
The first thing to do is to lift your foot. Breathe in. Put your foot down in front of you, first your heel and then your toes. Breathe out. Feel your feet solid on the Earth. You have already arrived.
We frequently walk with the sole purpose of getting from one place to another. But where are we in between? With every step, we can feel the miracle of walking on solid ground. We can arrive in the present moment with every step.
When we first learned to walk, we walked just to enjoy walking. We walked and discovered each moment as we encountered it. We can learn to walk that way again.
When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.
People ask me, “Why do you do walking meditation?” The best answer I can give is, “Because I like it.” Every step makes me happy. There’s no use in doing walking meditation if you’re not going to enjoy every step you make; it would be a waste of time. The same thing is true with sitting meditation. If someone asked, “What’s the use of sitting for hours and hours?” The best answer is, “Because I like sitting.” Sitting and walking can bring peace and joy. We have to learn how to sit and walk so that we can produce peace and joy during the time of sitting or the time of walking. We have to learn to walk so that we can enjoy every step. Mindfulness and concentration can bring a higher quality to our breath, to our sitting, and to our steps.
One of the most profound teachings is also the shortest: “I have arrived.” When we return to our breathing, we return to the present moment, our true home. There’s no need for us to struggle to arrive somewhere else. We know our final destination is the cemetery. Why are we in a hurry to get there? Why not step in the direction of life, which is in the present moment? If we practice walking meditation for even a few days, we will undergo a deep transformation and learn how to enjoy peace in each moment. We smile, and countless beings throughout the cosmos smile back at us—our peace is so deep. Everything we think, feel, and do has an effect on our ancestors and future generations and reverberates throughout the cosmos.
We may think of joy as something that happens spontaneously. Few people realize that it needs to be cultivated and practiced in order to grow. Mindfulness is the continuous practice of deeply touching every moment of daily life. To be mindful is to be truly present with your body and your mind, to bring harmony to your intentions and actions, and to be in harmony with those around you. We don’t need to make a separate time for this outside of our daily activities. We can practice mindfulness in every moment of the day as we walk from one place to another. When we walk through a door, we know that we’re going through a door. Our minds are with our actions.
Walking on this planet is a very wonderful thing to do. When astronauts return to Earth, one of the things that they’re most happy to do is to take a walk. Coming back to their home, they can enjoy the grasses, the plants, the flowers, the animals, and the birds with each step. How long do you think they enjoy walking on the Earth after they’ve returned from space? I’d guess that the first ten days are wonderful. But eventually they get used to it, and maybe a year later they don’t feel as happy as they did in the first few months after coming home. Every time we take a step on this Earth, we can appreciate the solid ground underneath us.