It is human to have a long and vertical spine. Also it is human to walk on two feet, with your head high, your breath free to move and your gaze flexible and alive.

 

This is not the posture of mind or body we assume at a computer or a desk, in a car or on a couch. Do we feel, under those circumstances, less than human?

 

We may not be able to escape these settings completely. But we can recover our humanity sometimes, and we can remember who we are. As we do that, memory will become more familiar to us, we can have our dignity and nobility back, and we can build a life as free people, not slaves to tools, desire and time.

 

Go to your back yard. Go to the roof top of your building. Go to a place in the park where you will not attract too much attention. Go to a churchyard, a museum, a basketball court, a cemetery, a mall, a quiet road, a tiny room, the hallway in the back of your office, the space between the couch and the TV in your living room.

 

Go there and quietly, without anyone noticing, place your palms together and tip your eyes down. Hold your left fist in your right. With your fists at the center of your chest and your elbows lifted, bring your life back to where you are. Where ever you are, leave the thoughts of what you did and what you need to do behind. Where ever you are, depart from all the things that you regret and want. Put your hands together and make your spine tall. Breathe easily under your belt and cast your gaze softly down. No one needs to know what you are doing. Take one step.

 

You can move forward one half step each time you take a breath. Let your mind settle down and be undisturbed by daydreams, distractions or desires. Not like a robot that is insensitive to the world. But as a human being who does not need to be caught by every impulse, sight or sound, or yearning. This is Kinhin, the Japanese name for walking meditation.

 

Make your spine tall. Hold your head high on your neck. Breathe way down under your belt. Take another step. Rolling your body weight from the ball of the rear foot to the heel of the front, there is a feeling of gliding forward, without sudden shifts of balance. You can do it at a slow pace. In an hour you might go once around the room.

 

You can go faster, at a normal walk, or you can go faster than that. But as you go, your head stays high, your breath stays free, your mind unburdened by concern and unoccupied by objects. Just open the hand of thought and hold on to nothing that arises in the mind. If you become distracted, return your attention to your spine and mind, tall and noble and human, and continue.

 

Do this for one hour each day. Or half an hour. Or for ten minutes. If you are too busy, then consider making a change in your life. We all need a way in this age, to recover the humanity that is being leached away from us as we encounter more temptations and distractions, as we are encouraged to ditch our humanity for fun.

 

Do this for an hour a day at the same time each day. This is a practice. And it is a holy one. It is a practice because in order to fulfill the requirement of the form— the physical, mental and schedule demands it makes on us — we change our body, our mind, and the structure of our life. Because the result is good — that is, by conforming to the demands of this practice our minds settle down, insights arise, we are encouraged to recover our humanity and to recognize the humanity in others — it is a holy practice.

 

Just doing something a lot is not a “practice.” Doing something which requires us to give up our bad habits, create good ones, increase our health, decrease our disturbance, and recover the dignity, decency, and nobility which are really ours, really us, is a practice. A holy and wonderful one. One worth doing. Starting now.