Walking meditation's first value is that it's a bridge. It's a bridge between our formal meditation practice and normal life. How many of you just sit still your whole life? Sit and stand still your whole life? There's nobody who does that usually. People may sit at a desk but they get up, they walk to the bathroom, they come back, they sit at their desk. There's the up, there's the down, there's the walking, there's the grabbing, there's everything. There's movement. We go home, we eat, we wash our face, we comb our hair, we make our bed. There's movement. The more we understand the value of walking meditation, the more we appreciate that it's the bridge that takes the formal meditation practice into our life.
Before Rosemary and I met Buddhism, we had learned only sitting meditation. That's all we had learned in our yoga practice. Sitting meditation. Sit, sit, sit. Fine. We also knew how to develop a bit mentally, but we never knew any other formal postures. So, then, we met Buddhism, we did a ten-day retreat, and we were taught to do walking meditation. I didn't like it. It was a bother. You had to have your eyes open. You had to be looking at things. You got distracted easily. I couldn't get into it. In the beginning, I didn't like it. But when this clicked and I actually understood this was the connection point - Aww, wow! - it was a whole different way of looking at walking meditation. I saw, wow, this was neat.
We went back to our property. I was sawing up wood. I didn't have a chain saw; I had a saw. I was sawing up some wood to put in the wood stove. All of a sudden, I was saying, "Hey, this is just like walking. Left, right, left, right, in, out, in, out, in, out." All of a sudden, sawing wood became part of my meditation practice. Neat. I started seeing other ways of tying it into life. Walking meditation became part of my life.
Rosemary and I used to manufacture candles. We would go for selling trips and put on a display inside a big shopping mall. When it was quiet and only one of us had to be there, , we had plenty of time. Do you know how long the hall was to walk all the way down? All the way back? To go down the other hall? All the way back? Nobody knew what we were doing. We knew what we were doing: taking a break from working at what was basically our job at the time. Taking a break, we just went off and did walking meditation and came back. What a wonderful break. These are some of the benefits of walking meditation.
As you get older, for some of you, and for others of you who are already old enough, walking meditation has another tremendous benefit: it's a change of posture. We don't have to sit, sit, sit, sit and have pain, pain, pain, pain. Some of you have done other ten-day retreats out there, where everybody just sits, sits, sits. Okay, we don't approve of it. If you don't know, one type is by a man named Goenka. We don't approve of it because it's only sit, sit, sit, sit. They don't teach walking meditation, they don't even teach food reflection. There are so many things missing from that practice. It's not full; it's narrow. Having the walking meditation means we get a change of posture. As we get older, we need the change of posture. Believe me. It was not so important when I was younger, but now, I enjoy the walking.
Another benefit is for sleepiness, especially when you're back home. In your normal practice, how many of you start to fall asleep in the evening? You get tired; you can't stay awake for that little sit you want to do. Don't sit. Walk instead. It's a valid practice. It is important. You don't have to do just sitting, sitting, sitting. When you're back in your normal life, you can do walking meditation instead, especially when you're sleepy. So walking meditation can be very helpful in many different ways.