Walking meditation, step by step

In this lesson: where walking meditation comes from, a step-by-step indoor and outdoor practice, journal prompts and how to stay safe.

Not everyone can sit still, and you do not have to. Walking meditation brings the same attention you practiced with the breath and the body scan into slow, deliberate steps. It is one of my favorite ways to ground before spellwork or a reading, and it is a gentle option on days when sitting feels too much.

Where walking meditation comes from

Historical Walking meditation is old. Early Buddhist texts describe monks and nuns pacing a straight path as part of their practice, and Zen traditions developed a slow walking practice called kinhin, done between periods of sitting. It was always meant to carry calm attention from the cushion into movement.

Modern In 1975 the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh introduced mindful walking to many Western readers in The Miracle of Mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, described in Full Catastrophe Living (1990), includes walking meditation alongside sitting and the body scan. Today it is used in clinics, schools and pagan groups alike.

How it works

Modern The attention goes to the soles of your feet and the three movements of each step: lift, move, place. You walk much more slowly than usual, so the body has time to feel. When the mind wanders, as it will, you pause, notice where it went and return to the feet. Some witches add a quiet sense of the earth under them, which links neatly to grounding.

Walking in many traditions

Historical In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, walking meditation (cankama) is practiced on a straight path, often between ten and thirty paces long, walking slowly back and forth. The Pali texts mention walking as one of the four postures of meditation, with sitting, standing and lying down. In Zen, kinhin is a slow walking practice between periods of seated zazen, with hands held at the chest. The Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 to 2022) made walking meditation popular in the West, teaching people to walk “as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet”.

Historical In Christian tradition, pilgrimage and the walking of labyrinths are forms of meditative walking. The famous labyrinth in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France was laid around 1200. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has a single path to the center, so there are no choices to make, only walking. Many churches and parks have labyrinths today, often open to the public.

Modern Walking meditation suits people who find sitting still difficult, including those with restlessness, ADHD or physical pain from sitting. Some research suggests that walking in green spaces reduces stress and rumination; a 2015 study by Gregory Bratman and colleagues at Stanford found that a 90-minute walk in nature reduced self-reported rumination and activity in a brain region linked to it, compared with a walk in an urban setting.

Three variations

The first is a slow indoor walk, ten paces across a room and back, noticing the lift, move and place of each foot. The second is a normal-speed outdoor walk where you count four steps on the in-breath and four on the out-breath, adjusting to whatever feels natural. The third is a sensory walk, where for five minutes you notice only sounds, then only smells, then only colors. Each suits a different day and setting.

Your walking practice, step by step

What you need: a clear path of about ten steps indoors, such as a hallway, or a quiet garden or park path; comfortable shoes or bare feet on a safe floor; a timer; and your notebook. Five to ten minutes is plenty to start.

1. Stand at one end of your path with your feet hip-width apart and feel your weight on both feet.
2. Let your hands rest in front of you, behind you or at your sides.
3. Lift your right foot slowly, noticing the lift.
4. Move it forward, noticing the move.
5. Place it down heel first, noticing the place, and shift your weight onto it.
6. Repeat with the left foot, keeping your eyes softly on the ground a few steps ahead.
7. At the end of the path, stop, take one breath and turn around slowly.
8. When the timer ends, stand still for three breaths and write one line in your notebook.

Journal prompts: Was it easier or harder than sitting? Which part of the step held your attention best: the lift, the move or the place? Did you notice anything about the ground, your balance or your mood that you usually miss?

Questions beginners ask

Beginners often ask whether they should walk very slowly. Slow walking helps attention at first, but any pace works if you stay present. If you feel self-conscious walking slowly in public, use a normal pace.

People also ask whether they can listen to music. Music changes the practice into something else, which can be lovely, but for meditation try silence or natural sounds.

Many wonder what to do with their eyes. Keep them open and softly lowered a few steps ahead for safety. Never close your eyes while walking.

Myths to drop: Walking meditation is not a lesser form than sitting. You do not need a special path or labyrinth. And it is not only for monks; anyone can do it on the way to the bus.

Thoreau and the art of sauntering

Historical Walking as a way of paying attention has a lively history in Western writing too. The American writer Henry David Thoreau gave a lecture on the subject that was published as the essay “Walking” in 1862, shortly after his death. He wrote that he had met only one or two people “who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks”, people who had “a genius, so to speak, for sauntering”.

Thoreau then offered a playful origin for the word “saunter”: medieval wanderers who claimed to be going “à la Sainte Terre”, to the Holy Land. Dictionaries say the real origin of the word is uncertain, so treat his story as a charming tale rather than fact. What matters is his point. A saunterer, he wrote, “is no more vagrant than the meandering river”. A good walk has no rush in it. It goes where it goes, and pays attention on the way.

Thoreau’s sauntering is not Buddhist walking meditation, which is slower and more deliberate. But the two share something: walking not to get somewhere, but to be fully where you are.

A sensory walk, worked through

Here is a fuller version of an outdoor walk you can try in a park or a quiet street. Begin by standing still for a minute and feeling your feet. Then walk at a gentle pace, slower than usual. For the first five minutes, notice only what you see: colours, shapes, light and shadow. For the next five, notice what you hear: birds, traffic, wind, your own steps. For the next five, notice touch: the air on your face, your clothes moving, the ground under your shoes. For the last few minutes, let attention open to everything at once.

When your mind drifts to a worry, which it will, notice where it went, then return to the sense you are practising. At the end, stand still again for a minute and take three slow breaths.

One learner wrote after her first sensory walk: “Ten different greens in one hedge. A dog that barked twice. The wind was colder than I thought. My shoulders came down from my ears for the first time this week.” Notes like these are the heart of the practice.

Walking safely and kindly

Choose routes where you feel safe, especially if you walk alone or after dark. Keep one ear free of headphones near traffic, and walk at a normal pace on busy pavements so you do not block others. A very slow walking meditation is best saved for a garden, a quiet corridor or your own room. If you use a wheelchair, a mobility aid or a cane, the same practice works with the sensations of moving: the push of your hands, the roll of the wheels, the rhythm of the cane.

A worked example

A learner tries walking meditation in her hallway after a stressful day. For the first two minutes her mind keeps jumping to an email. Each time she stops, breathes and goes back to “lift, move, place”. By the fifth minute she notices the cool floor under her heel and that her shoulders have dropped. Her note reads: “Hallway, 7 minutes. Busy head, then cool floor. Better than sitting tonight.”

Try this

Walk slowly back and forth along a ten-step path indoors for five minutes, noticing lift, move and place with each foot. When your mind wanders, stop, take one breath and begin again. Write one line about how it felt.

A variation for wheelchair users: the same attention works with the push of the wheels, the feeling of the rims under your hands and the changing view as you move.

A beginner’s worry, answered. “I feel silly walking so slowly.” Many people do at first. Practise the slow version indoors, and use a normal-paced, attentive walk outside. Nobody can see where your attention is.

A variation for the workday. Walk to the printer, the kitchen or the bathroom as a tiny walking meditation: feel each step, notice one breath at the door, and arrive. Several of these short walks a day add up to real practice without any extra time.

Recap

Walking meditation comes from Buddhist monastic practice and is part of modern mindfulness programs. You walk slowly, attending to lift, move and place, and return to the feet whenever the mind wanders. Start on a short, safe path for five to ten minutes.

What next

Press “Mark as done” and continue with Loving-kindness and self-compassion. My grounding and centering page pairs well with walking practice.

Further reading: Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Walk (Parallax Press, 2015). Gregory N. Bratman et al., “Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation”, PNAS 112 (2015).

Sources

• Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness (first published 1975; Boston: Beacon Press, 1976).
• Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living (New York: Delacorte, 1990).
• David A. Treleaven, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018).

Go deeper: the witchcraft and tarot pages on this site

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