Mindfulness and movement, aching knees, flying kicks, and mountain climbing, part one. One of the questions that seems to arise most often from students of mindfulness involves how to make use of movement to help cultivate their practice. There's quite a lot to be said about this, so I'm going to do it in three sessions rather than one. And in this first part we'll consider how we might be introduced to mindful movement in our practice and then how something like mindful walking might relate to that. In the second part I'll take a little look at some allied practices that are often labeled as instances of mindful movement, whether this is justifiable or not, such as yoga qi gong, and the martial arts. And finally, in the third part we'll consider the current vogue for finding mindfulness in every action and movement that we make. First up then, it's helpful to note that mindfulness is very often associated with sitting very still and meditating in a rather formal manner, which can in itself be an obstacle for some people, believe it or not. And if you've tried even a few of the formal exercises in this course, I'd be willing to bet that you will believe it. Many people find it hard to sit still or lie down for extended periods of time at least without becoming seriously uncomfortable or, at the other extreme, falling asleep. And so even while the image of tranquility that some people associate with the calm and motionless posture of a meditating monk can be inspirational and aspirational for some. For others, the belief that it's necessary to sit in an awkward and possibly painful position for long periods of time can simply turn them away from practice all together. And it's partly with this in mind that mindfulness courses often incorporate formal movement practices. In some cases these movement practices emerge quite naturally and organically out of the first few weeks of a formal sitting practice. A good teacher might already be asking students about what they'd like to do when feelings of discomfort arise in their bodies while they sit or while they lie down or while they hold whatever posture they've adopted for their meditation. Those feelings of discomfort can be a genuine opportunity for practice because, at the very least, we have to make a choice in those moments about how to respond to the discomfort. We can, at least, choose to respond introspectively by dealing with it inside our bodies or extrospectively, that is, by dealing with it outside or with our bodies. In terms of introspection, do we, for instance, choose to ignore the itch on the end of a nose or the ache in our knee or the painful knot in our lower back that emerge after a few minutes of sitting? And when I say ignore these sensations, you'll realize, I think, that I'm hiding at least two sub choices behind that word. When I ignore the discomfort, am I choosing to attempt to shut it out so that I don't notice it anymore or am I simply choosing to allow the itch, the ache, or the pain to be itself without trying to judge or change it? For the record and there's a footnote here, while the former approach has a place in various forms of meditation, it is the latter that typifies the mindfulness-based approach. In mindfulness practice, as you'll know by now, we seek to be open to the sensations in our bodies, not to reject them, not to shut them away. So let's say we deal with the ache in our knee introspectively by allowing that ache to be and by continuing to sit with it, unmoving, as though it's a welcome friend who's joined us for our practice today. But let's say that rather than dealing with this ache introspectively, we decided instead that we'd like to address it extrospectively. A good teacher might invite you to make this choice during a practice. They might say to you, for instance, should you find that your knees have started to ache remind yourself that it's perfectly natural for our body to feel discomfort or to resist postures the don't feel natural to it. So now make a choice, would you like to continue to sit with that discomfort and perhaps explore it a little more or would you like to move that part of your body in order to relieve the discomfort? Now, importantly, this is not an invitation to fidget and to shift and to shuffle mindlessly, rather it's an invitation for us to become mindful of the movements when we make them. Rather than automatically fidgeting and twitching to relieve discomforts in our posture as we might when, I don't know, watching TV or sitting in a car or, heaven forbid, sitting in an economy class seat on a long-haul flight. We instead make a deliberate choice to shift our balance and our weight to one side, feeling the complex interplay of muscles and joints that participate in that movement. Thus enabling us to stretch out the aching knee so that our leg relaxes and the discomfort subsides, feeling the pain gradually dissolve. The invitation to move is an invitation to bring your mindful awareness into a deliberate movement, to fold that movement into your practice rather than allowing it to break or interrupt your practice. As a result, for the vast majority of people this kind of mindful movement is often very, very slow. Rather than making an automated reflex motion, which could be both fast and efficient albeit completely mindless, we instead bring deliberate attention and volition to each step and component of the motion. Maintaining our awareness of how that motion feels to us and how it transforms other sensations in our bodies and in our minds. So for many people, mindful movement actually begins as a way of looking after ourselves during formal meditations. A way of being attentive to and kind about our physical limitations without breaking or interrupting the cultivation of mindfulness in those meditations. Later on in a formal course of mindfulness training this kind of practice might be drawn out into an activity in its own right. For instance, many courses include a practice called mindful walking, which, as the label suggests, involves walking in a mindful manner, but what does this mean? Well, it means making the choice to take each individual step deliberately rather than reflexively or automatically. It means maintaining our awareness of the sensations that arise in our bodies as we work through the motions involved in taking steps. Perhaps this involves sensations in our toes, along the soles of our feet, in our ankles. Perhaps it's along the lower part of our legs or the upper parts or maybe it's even up in our shoulders. It could be, I don't know, in our ears, wherever we feel it. Just like making the choice to move your knee to ease discomfort during a sitting practice, mindful walking folds the motions of our body into our practice of mindful awareness. This is why the vast majority of people engaged in mindful walking will walk extremely slowly. There's a lot going on in each step when you pay attention to it all. In case you're skeptical about just how much is going on, I quite often teach with a really simple mindful movement exercise that I call the impossibility of standing still. You can try it right now, all you have to do is stand up. Just stand naturally and close your eyes, breathe into your posture as you would at the start of any mindfulness practice. And then gradually bring your attention to the activity of the muscles in your body as it automatically, so all by itself, as it works to maintain your balance in whatever position you've adopted. In actuality, the human body is pretty precariously balanced when it's standing still and upright. And our muscles tweak our balance and our posture constantly to prevent us from toppling over. Most of us take standing still completely for granted even though it's almost impossible. It's astonishingly complex thing to do. If you don't believe me, just try it. Anyway, the amount of awareness required is also why we tend to practice mindful walking in safe places. And often we just walk in little circles since while their attention is held so intensively within our bodies, we are likely to be less responsive and, certainly, less automatically responsive to what's going on around us. So mindful walking through traffic, for instance, is not recommended. Indeed, walking to get to a destination, walking as an instrument, if you like, rather than simply walking for its own sake or walking just to experience the motion and sensations of walking is sometimes thought of as a counter to mindful walking. So walking to the shops, for instance, might not be the ideal opportunity for mindful walking since your mind is already on other things, things other than walking. That said, many people find moments for at least a few mindful steps on all of their walks, whether they're walking to the shops or anywhere else. And our ability to find those opportunities is part of generalizing our practice into everyday life. In fact, mindful walking actually has a rather ancient pedigree. Those of you interested in monastic practices will probably already be aware that many traditions of Buddhism emphasize an alternation of sitting and walking meditations both as formal practices. Indeed, some monasteries have specially built halls or courtyards for the practice of walking in circles. The monastic reasons for this are various, ranging from the recognition that the human body simply can't sit motionless all of the time without eventually suffering damage or becoming weak. This is a variation on us accepting that sometimes when our knees hurt, we should move our knees. Other reasons are the general acknowledgement that exercise is good for people. And finally, perhaps the recognition that there is a legitimate way to engage in the physical actions associated with walking that renders that type of movement into a formal meditative practice in its own right. Importantly then, just as it is the case that not everyone who is sitting down with their eyes closed is meditating, not everyone with their eyes closed and sitting down is cultivating mindfulness. So it's also the case that not everyone who is walking is meditating or cultivating mindfulness. Not even if they're walking really, really [LAUGH] slowly. That is, mindfulness isn't inherent in the physical actions or the postures. Transforming any of these body orientations into a mindfulness practice requires deliberate efforts of awareness. And, as we know, it requires us to pay attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. It takes practice and it takes effort and it can be really tiring. Okay, so I think that gets us more or less to where we needed to be at the end of this first part of these three sessions on mindfulness and movement. In part two in just a second we'll see how this relates to questions of mindfulness in yoga and qi gong and the martial arts. And then in part three we'll look at some other activities too.
