I am an adventurer when it comes to meditation. It’s not that I’ll try anything and everything — but I do like to play.
Walking meditation is the most basic kind for me. When I need to come home again, walking meditation is how I get there.
Often I’ll synchronize my breath and my steps. So you can imagine my ‘hello!’ when I saw a book called Breathwalk at Half Price Books.
A lot of it was old-shoe familiar. But there was one new thing… he incorporated a mantra in the rhythm of the walking and breathing.
You, dear reader, (having read the title of this post, after all) can probably see this coming… but I didn’t. I tried his 4-note mantra in rhythm with my steps. I tried it, in fact, for several weeks—not all the time, but just enough.
This morning I decided I wanted just the freshness of the morning and my empty mind. I took a step. The mantra stepped out with me. I pushed it away. It wouldn’t go.
I decided to just walk, no meditation. The mantra paid no attention. It was stuck in my mind like a song, entrained to my steps. What to do?
Finally, I did what any self-respecting person would do when they’ve got a song stuck in their head–I thought of another one:
“I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole,
and the little skunk said, ‘why bless my soul,
take it out, take it out, remove it!’
I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole,
and the little skunk said, ‘why bless my soul,
take it out, take it out, remove it!’
I removed it… too late!”
That removed it.
