Saturday, May 20, 2006

Moving meditation

Here at the Center we do some walking meditation during each daily meditation practice. I want to share a passage with you from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation about mindful movement:
If sitting can be meditation and walking can be meditation, can anything be meditation? Yes, anything can be meditation. With practice, you can maintain a state of mindful awareness 24 hours a day. So once you've learned to meditate while sitting and meditate while walking, expand your meditation practice to other areas of movement. If movement is more your style, get out your energy with dynamic meditation before you attempt sitting meditation.

For centuries, various cultures have attempted to extend the meditative state into other areas of physical activity, resulting in many forms of mind-body-spirit fitness programs, from yoga to whirling. Each of these systems is designed to nurture, maintain, strengthen, and actualize the entire self. To reap the maximum benefit, they are best practiced in a state of mindfulness.

Whether you're looking for an interesting variation to your regular fitness program or want to immerse yourself in the spiritual dimension of your favorite tradition, consider adding moving meditations to your meditation repertoire.
I often recommend mindful sitting and mindful standing as a movement meditation. You slowly sit and then stand and repeat these movements for the duration of the meditation period. You can do this using a chair or sitting on the floor. Just sit and stand over and over but do it with great care and appreciation for your ability to do so. This is a very effective meditation for people to do when they're very agitated.

1 comment:

  1. I have only been blogging a week but I have learned that comments can be appreciated. My blog Fears&Funs is for anything I want but it has been mostly about my ideas and practice of meditation.

    I meditated before I tried yoga and I was surprised to find that stretching and motion had an effect on my mood. I am reminded of work by Dr. Candace Pert on neurotransmitters in brain being found duplicated in other parts of the body. Motion and stretching along with tensing and relaxing various muscles seem to be important tools.

