Learning to Practice

When we sit in a silent meditation, we focus on our breath. That's it. Breath in. Breath out. It's that easy. However, our monkey mind will try to distract us from our breath. It says "Wait, I want to think, I want to plan, I want to harp on what that person at the grocery store did to me. I want to think about how bad traffic was today. I don't want to just sit here and do NOTHING, for heaven's sake!" But yes you do. The challenge comes when we take control over that monkey and say "No, I will sit here and concentrate on my breath." Taming the monkey is the goal of meditation.

When we engage in moving meditation, we focus on the movement. Nothing else. When we walk in meditation, we must do so slowly and with intention. Focus your concentration on lifting one foot up and putting it on the ground. Then focus on lifting the other foot up and putting it on the ground. We focus on how our foot feels on the ground. How it feels when we lift it up.   The idea is to encourage feeling every movement slowly and with deliberation, which teaches our minds to focus on one thing at a time.

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