Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of June 2, 2008

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Walking Presence

Though the most ordinary and common of activities, walking nevertheless offers a particularly potent opportunity for the work of presence, for several reasons. Often when we walk, we are not engaged in anything else. For example, we are not talking or listening, unless we have a cell phone or iPod at our ear. Furthermore, once set in motion and given direction, our body continues walking with little further input from our intention. This inherent simplicity of walking leaves us enough spare attention to devote to our inner work. We can even utilize the extra energy generated by walking to support our presence. All this applies to short walks of a few dozen steps, and even more to longer walks

As always, we begin by grounding our awareness in our body. We put our attention on the sensations of our legs, arms, torso, head, and ultimately the whole body, while we walk. We inhabit our inner body of sensation as we walk, staying in contact with our physical body through the sensitive energy. With practice, we can quickly enter whole-body awareness. Keeping our attention in the body channels the excess energy produced by walking into our inner body sensation. We become fully alive, walking.

The key element is to stay engaged. We do not allow the walking to become solely automatic and we do not give ourselves over to the stream of thoughts. We stay fully here, in this body, in this place, taking this step. We allow our body to walk, utilizing its habitual, automatic patterns of movement. But we stay with it. We maintain the experience: “I am walking.” The inner action of staying here, in our body as it walks, takes us beneath the continuing flow of thoughts into the stillness of consciousness. Thereby we become walking presence, engaged at multiple levels: our body, our sensation, the pure consciousness, and “I” the walker. We unify these levels; we unify ourselves in the simple act of walking. We walk in wholeness and joy comes naturally.

Although you have a destination, walk as if you had already arrived. As indeed you have arrived, in presence, in this moment, our only moment.

Walking presence provides excellent exercise for body and soul. The same methods work for running/jogging and for other sports and physical activities. But walking may be the easiest because it presents a workable balance between the physical activity and the inner effort of presence, a balance wherein the two sides complement and join each other.

For this week, practice walking presence whenever you walk more than a few dozen steps.


     

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