Kissing the Earth

About 10 of us, including some new members, gathered for a walking meditation in Hickory Hill Park this beautiful spring morning.

To help put the practice into context, I shared some of the following with our sangha:

Walking slowly, mindfully, may seem peculiar. It doesn't get the heart rate up, so there's not much cardio benefit. It's not an efficient way to get somewhere. And it may feel strange to walk with such deliberation. We may find all kinds of inner resistance to slowing our pace, especially after a week of work, or finals at school, or rushing from wherever we came. 

But walking mindfully--like doing anything mindfully (eating, sitting, moving about our day)--is a radical statement in a world that is constantly buzzing, running, fretting, planning, talking, thinking, pushing, pulling. 

Mindfulness gives us the inner spaciousness to remind ourselves that we really have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to be. Each moment is a living miracle, here and gone if we fail to pay attention. 

So with each soft footfall, each in-breath and out-breath, we reconnect with our foundational selves, with the earth, and with one another. We marinate in the simple pleasure of community, the sangha, and we remember--because deep down, we already know it--that we are nothing more and nothing less than expressions of the universe. 

Thich Nhat Hanh says that as we walk, we should hold ourselves as kings and queens, issuing decrees of peace and compassion with each step, putting a royal seal on the earth with our feet. With one step, we breathe in, drawing up through the earth into our bodies, our hearts, our minds. With another step, we breathe out, and send out back down through our bodies, our feet, into the earth, and out to the universe. 

So over the course of about 45 minutes we walked mindfully, silently, as the fickle spring weather put on a show. As we joked later, our group seemed to encounter almost all four of the seasons: cool and cloudy and breezy one moment like a crisp October day, sun-kissed and warm the next as the clouds parted to reveal vast stretches of blue sky. Birdsong filled the woods, as well as the scratch and scrabble of squirrels and field mice unseen beneath the green and leafy ground cover. Twice we encountered an energetic and curious but gentle dog that didn't seem sure what to make of these people walking so slowly and silently along the path. And every now and again we invited the bell to sound, which helped bring us back to the moment and reminded us to breathe and to be present to the woods and to the world.

After, many of us gathered at Lucky's for coffee and tea and wonderful conversation about the challenges of living mindful lives, about summer plans, about the end of the school year. It reminded me once more how much beauty and value the sangha brings to me personally, and to our community. I'm looking forward to seeing many of these friends, and other members of the sangha, at our next meditation gathering 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 18, in Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

I'll end with a walking meditation gatha (or word poem) from Thich Nhat Hanh. Even if you weren't able to join our group this morning, any time you take a walk--around the block, in the woods, in a park, even in the aisles of the grocery store--you might recite this silently to yourself as you kiss the earth with each gentle placement of your foot:

The mind can go in a thousand directions,

But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

With each step, a gentle wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.

Bowing, 

Stephen