Planting Your Feet

Welcome!

If you are looking to find resources on how to do walking meditation, whether alone or with students, you are on the right path!

How to Use this Site

This website is a guided tour of walking meditation. It is intended for both individuals who would like to learn to practice walking meditation on their own, as well as teachers who would like to introduce walking meditation to students of all ages and walks of life.

For individuals, this website can function as a standalone, self-learning course.

For teachers, this website can function as a growing, dynamic and collaborative resource. Teachers have opportunities to fill in the editable google docs throughout this course, as well as to add to the reading list and suggest new activities and ideas related to walking meditation.

Navigating the Modules

Each page of "Planting Your Feet" is a separate module which introduces a key concept in walking meditation. Rather than simply dive into walking practice itself, it's recommended that students complete each section in the sequence in which it is laid out on the website, from left to right.

Below, you will find a brief description of each module and its objectives, as well as a direct link to each.

1. Metaphors

This page will help learners reflect on walking as an embodied metaphor. It will help us better understand the way walking is embedded in our styles and ways of being, thus forming a creative bridge between discursive expressions of walking and embodied experiences of walking. This exercise also helps to bridge contemplative experiences with discursive reflection, which is especially helpful when we start to journal our walking meditation practice.

2. How to Practice

This page gets to the "nitty gritty" of walking meditation practice. Yes, we've already arrived at that point! Use this page to learn about how to do walking meditation as well as get a link to a recording of a guided walking meditation script. This unit focuses mainly on how to practice, so the "homework" is to practice walking meditation anywhere: at home, in a park, a forested area, etc.

3. Benefits

"Benefits" outlines current research related to the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional benefits of walking meditation practice. It also contains two tools.

One is a google doc which is used dynamically and collaboratively to build an annotated reading list related to walking meditation research.

The second document is a downloadable/ printable doc that allows you to fill in your own reasons for meditative walking.

Learn about why we practice walking meditation and why it's good for us. Get motivated and inspired!

4. Nature

Walking meditation is intimately connected to an appreciation of the natural world. It can extend to an increased engagement with environmental preservation and activism. The purpose of this module is to familiarize the learner with the connections between walking and nature, through an analysis of two texts-one "classic" and one contemporary--- by modern spiritual teachers.

5. Keeping a Journal

To fully benefit from and appreciate walking meditation, a meditation journal is highly recommended. It can be a tool not only for self-monitoring, but also for sharing one's practice and challenges with fellow practitioners and teachers. This module will teach you how to keep a meditation journal: what to write, what not to write, and where/when to write.

6. Resources for Teachers

This page, intended mainly for teachers, is designed to help tie walking meditation to specific subject areas in classrooms. Blending walking meditation with "traditional" subject areas such as art and literature helps to ground the meditative practice in focused subject areas, while giving the subject itself an embodied and transformative edge.

"Non-teachers" can also use this module by doing one of the exercises on their own.

Teachers are free to use these lessons which I have created to help them incorporate walking meditation in their classrooms. An editable document is also provided for teachers to add to the lesson plans available.

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I sincerely hope that you will find benefit from the modules on this site. If you have any suggestions or would like to know more about me, feel free to contact me at the Contact page.

I look forward to continuing to walk with you!

Sincerely,

Keith Brown