How to Walk
Good Fit
- Readers who want a simple method, needing no separate time, to stop and breathe in a stressed, rushed day
- Beginners to meditation who want to practise in motion rather than seated
- Readers who like short, poem-like texts
Not a Fit
- Readers who want scientific evidence, research and detailed explanation: the book's tone is personal and instructive
- Readers who keep away from a Buddhist worldview (nirvana, the cosmic body, ancestors living in us) and want a neutral stress-management book
- Readers expecting a long, sequential and deep discussion: the book is very short and the thoughts are brief fragments
The book consists of short chapters of one or two paragraphs each and explains walking meditation in plain sentences. To the question «why do we walk?» Thich Nhat Hanh answers «because I love it»: each step makes him happy; if you will not enjoy the steps, walking meditation is a waste of time. Sitting and walking can both bring peace and joy, but for that we need to learn how to sit and walk. In the chapter «Arriving», «I have arrived» is the deepest and shortest teaching: we know the last stop is the cemetery, so what is the point of hurrying? The direction of life is the present moment.
The following chapters show different situations. «Sleepwalking»: we walk like sleepwalkers while seeking happiness, our mind elsewhere; returning to breath and step is waking up. «Enlightenment»: ten years are not needed, a few seconds are enough — be aware that you are walking. «Walking in the airport», «Climbing the mountain» (1080 steps on Wutai Shan in China, stopping every ten steps and smiling), the silent walk with Daniel Berrigan in Central Park show how the teaching is applied in daily life.
Other chapters are deeper: «Running» — our habit of running to the future believing that happiness is not possible here and now («habit energy» passed down from ancestors) and that a single mindful step can end it; «Silence» — not talking while walking at Plum Village; «Walking for our ancestors and future generations» — «happiness is not an individual matter». The style is plain, like aphorisms; the weakness is that the text is very small and repeats, and the practical instruction is short.
- Each chapter is built on one or two paragraphs and one idea, and can be read from any point
- The language is plain and aphoristic, even a child can understand
- Personal memories (Berrigan, Wutai Shan, the Honolulu airport) make abstract teachings vivid
- The teaching can be applied both in walking and in everyday movement
The author's best-known book on mindfulness in daily life
Practical training in mindfulness, with a fuller explanation
A Western account of mindfulness practice
At the end of this part the author writes in «Walking is a miracle» that the miracle is not walking on water but walking among greenery and feeling the peace and beauty around; in «Mother Earth» that as we walk we touch the living being that feeds all life and that it is time to «kiss the earth with our feet and our love»; and in «Leaving a mark on the world» that when we walk in haste and worry we leave marks of worry and sorrow, but that even a child can leave marks of peace and happiness.
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