For those of you who might have read one of our original books, we actually taught in the walking that you had a choice. You could be aware of the footsteps and the body movement, or you could be aware of the breathing and just kind of match it with the footsteps. We taught that in the early days. We soon found out that that was causing more problems than benefit. So, we stopped teaching the breathing with the walking, and focused more on the walking being the connection from formal meditation into our normal life.
It teaches us how to move and be aware. So that then you can chop vegetables, you can wash dishes, you can put on and off your clothes, and actually be with your clothes, the dishes, the chopping. For some people who focus their practice on the breath wherever they go, chopping of vegetables becomes quite dangerous. It really does, because they're losing the awareness of reality in that moment. They're too busy with their breath, and they're not aware of the moment.
So we stopped teaching that way, because we felt it was more harm than good. We want people to be mindful of movements, and the walking meditation is that starting point in formal practice, that ties over so well to our life, because most of our life is movement. It's not stationary, sitting still or standing still.