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What's the "proper way" of doing walking meditation?

 

Re: Walking Meditation Sutta

Post by frank k » 

Lots of sutta references here on walking meditation:

http://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi/w ... index.html

IMO, there is too much misconception about differences between "formal sitting" meditation and walking meditation, or meditation in any posture and time.

Almost everything you do in sitting you can also practice standing or walking.

It just confuses people if they think there's a "proper way"  to do walking meditation. Perhaps that's the lesson we should take from the lack of specific walking meditation instructions in the suttas, because there isn't a differentiation between postures in terms of what you should be doing.
AN 4.11 and 4.12 sum it up best:
In whatever posture:
* You still still be practicing rememberfulness [of relevant Dharmas, 4sp as default] (sati, "mindfulness"),
* you should be doing that sati with the maximum amount of ekaggata (singular focus) and jhana quality that you can,
* you should always be working on lucidly discerning (sampajano) what you're intending, thinking, doing,
* always working on thinking what you want to think and not thinking what you don't want to think,
* always immediately removing any akusala evil Dharma that comes your way.
* being in a "formal sitting meditation" just means you've reduced your potential distractions in your field of awareness, otherwise, the job is always the same.


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