Keeping a Journal

Keeping a journal of one's walking meditation practice is an engaging way to report on one's feelings, impressions and experiences in doing walking meditation.

Advantages of keeping a meditative walking journal:

• Motivation: Keeping a meditative journal helps to motivate one to keep up a daily practice. Journaling software such as Penzu (https://classic.penzu.com) have a feature which allows you to receive daily reminders to write in your journal. What better way to also motivate us to practice meditation, than through a daily record of the times we meditate?
• Honesty: Writing and recording a meditative journal helps practitioners stay honest (and clear) about their daily practice. Bodhipaksa, a Buddhist teacher and author of wildmind.org, notes: "When we sit down after meditation and take a few minutes to journal what we’ve been experiencing, it makes it pretty obvious how effective we’ve really been. If we examine our experience, honestly and with a desire to learn, then we become much more aware of what our meditation practice actually is." (Source: https://www.wildmind.org/background/journal)
• Place and Time: Meditation journals, particularly related to walking meditation, become travelogues for the places and spaces in which we've practiced our walking. When supplemented with photographs of natural areas or landmarks, these journals offer a lasting keepsake for others to be inspired in their travels and practices.
• Sharing . Meditative journals can become ways of sharing reflections with fellow practitioners, to help each other achieve perspective on challenges, difficulties or obstacles to practice, as well as the high points. When I am sharing about an experience of walking meditation I had in a provincial park, I am sharing a cool place that someone else might wish to explore as well. Collaborative journals can become shared resources of places in which we tried to do walking meditation: which are most conductive to practice, which aren't conducive, etc.
• Application: Most meditation practitioners are not simply looking to have a pleasant experience during a meditative walk. Rather, they also seek to extend their meditative practice to other parts of their life. Double ledger meditation can be used to record what happens during the practice itself , as well as reflecting on how this extends to daily life.

Examples of Journal Templates

I created a "guided" Meditation Journal Template for beginners who are unfamiliar with meditation journaling. You can find it at the bottom of this page or by clicking here.

This template provides guidance on what to focus when we are doing meditation journals, and can be a tool to help our meditation practice stay close to the moment of our senses. More intermediate or "seasoned" practitioners can modify the journal so that there are only two columns: one for date/time/place and the other for the specifics.

Products such as "The Mindful Ledger" (https://themindfulledger.com/) could also be used, especially for those who are motivated by both qualitative and quantitative tallying of times and hours practiced. Similar to exercise apps that might keep track of the number of steps you made on a walk, the Mindful Ledger records the amount of times and hours practiced

Tips in Keeping a Meditation Journal

While there are several possible forms of journals that can emerge from a contemplative practice, several points need to be kept in mind when we are writing a meditative journal for walking. A few tips can be found here:

1. Separate "Meditation" Time from "Journal" Time

It's important not to mix these two together. When you are walking, "just walk": that is, don't think about what you are going to write in your journal afterward!

2. Be Honest

Because the meditative journal is meant to chronicle your actual meditation experiences (not imagined or idealized ones), try to stick to a honest account of what really happened. If your mind wandered, you felt anxious, or you couldn't relax, remember that it's totally okay: there are no "right" or "wrong" ways to experience meditation. Recording your struggles with meditation is also a more productive way to learn how to use meditation methods properly, as well as learning self-compassion and patience.

3. Focus on Felt Experiences, Not "Thinking About"...:

While most journals are specifically designed as forms of "thinking out loud", the meditative journal is more designed to explore what happens during meditation practice. Since meditation is not about ruminating or reflecting on something, it's important that a meditative journal focus more on the felt experiences of the practice. Examples of what to write:

• how you used the method
• feelings, sensations
• what got in the way of using the method.