{"id":2388,"date":"2014-05-03T09:55:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T08:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2015-12-14T22:54:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T21:54:48","slug":"walking-home-what-i-do-when-i-do-a-mindfulness-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/archives\/2388","title":{"rendered":"Walking Home: What I do when I do a Mindfulness Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2391\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2391\" style=\"width: 227px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2391 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth-e1399107174488-524x640.jpg\" alt=\"Edinburgh Labyrinth\" width=\"227\" height=\"278\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth-e1399107174488-524x640.jpg 524w, https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth-e1399107174488-768x938.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth-e1399107174488-838x1024.jpg 838w, https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Edinburgh-Labyrinth-e1399107174488.jpg 1107w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 227px) 100vw, 227px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2391\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Edinburgh Labyrinth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Life can feel as if it is made up of a series of episodes; as if we are living from moment to moment. This is an illusion. There is only one, all encompassing moment. We are fooled because we don&#8217;t pay attention to it the whole time.<\/p>\n<p>This one, absolute moment is our <em>True Home<\/em>. We may leave it to wander in our dreams or wallow in memories but we are only fully alive, truly content, completely healed when we return home.<\/p>\n<p>I walk to enter my <em>True Home<\/em>. This is a description of what I do when I walk:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I try to walk somewhere I feel safe. Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere green.<\/li>\n<li>I walk slowly, smoothly, silently.<\/li>\n<li>I synchronise my walking and my breathing.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes I take two steps for the in breath and two steps for the out breath. In ~ step, step. Out ~ step, step.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes I just step with each inhalation and exhalation. In ~ step. Out ~ step.<\/li>\n<li>When I notice I am distracted I just come back to my steps and my breathing accepting my distraction as part of the experience.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes I say to myself a simple <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gatha\">gatha<\/a> as I walk. One step per line:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><p>I have arrived<br \/>\nI am home<br \/>\nin the here<br \/>\nin the now<br \/>\nI am solid<br \/>\nI am free<br \/>\nin the Ultimate<br \/>\nI dwell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Sometimes even the gatha is too much and I reduce it to Arrived~step. Home~step.<\/li>\n<li>If I am walking with a friend we invite a small bell to sound before we start.<\/li>\n<li>If I am alone I imagine the bell.<\/li>\n<li>I either set a timer on my phone or decide a path I will walk so there is no distraction of think &#8220;Am I done yet?&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Twenty minutes is a good duration.<\/li>\n<li>Occasionally I walk a labyrinth as the path.<\/li>\n<li>I look for peace in every step not in the destination.<\/li>\n<li>At the end I say thank you.<\/li>\n<li>As I walk away I feel the power of mindfulness seeping into the rest of my life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am grateful to my family, friends and teachers (especially <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh\">Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh<\/a>) who have created the conditions that enable me to practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life can feel as if it is made up of a series of episodes; as if we are living from moment to moment. This is an illusion. There is only one, all encompassing moment. We are fooled because we don&#8217;t pay attention to it the whole time. This one, absolute&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mindfulness_buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}