DAILY PHOTO: Walking in the Tall Grass, Chitradurga
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Tag Archives: walking
BOOK REVIEW: Walking Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh & Nguyen Anh-Huong
Walking Meditation by Thich Nhat HanhMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This brief guide to walking meditation lays out a basic practice linking breath and stride, and then explores such topics as: how to apply the practice to varied environments, coping with emotion through [and during] walking, the social dimension of walking meditation, and a few thoughts on applying the practice to jogging. The book is nominally attributed to the beloved Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk who recently passed (i.e. January 2022,) Thich Nhat Hanh, but it seems the bulk of the book was written by the co-author (Nguyen Anh-Huong.) That said, it’s a clearer distribution of labor than usual for mega-guru books; not only does the author get a co-author credit but the words of Thich Nhat Hanh are presented as textboxes with bylines.
The book is less than a hundred pages of text, but the edition I have came with a CD and DVD (if anyone still has a player for these antiquated technologies. If you’re paying full price, I’d make sure you have some means to play the CD and DVD. I obtained a used copy at a low price, so it wasn’t a concern.) The book’s brevity has both pros and cons. On the pro side, it keeps things simple. The practice is a straightforward one of linking one’s breath to one’s stride, and there’s no tedious elaborations or variations with which to contend. On the con side, if one is looking for insight into improving alignment or biomechanics of walking, that’s not covered in this book. That is probably for the best, because it’s hard to avoid overthinking the practice if one is given extensive directions on stride and the like. This isn’t so much a criticism as an attempt to temper expectations for those who may feel they would benefit from some sort of anatomical or biomechanical insights on walking or physiological insights about the breath.
If you’re looking for a quick and straightforward guide to practicing walking meditation, give it a read.
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Deep Trail [Haiku]
the early trail is bare and well-defined; the deep trail hides
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Walking Alone IV [Haiku]
the sage's staff swings like a pendulum in a clockwork walk
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Walking [Common Meter]
The columns of the forest lift the vaulted canopy. I walk down below on the trail that parts understory. Each step through the loam brings me home to barefoot days of yore. When I thought nothing of placing skin to the forest floor -- while letting the woods become me as I grew into it; I would yield my identity. To nature, I'd submit. And in a walk, I did become everything and nothing, falling into a peace at once humbling and stunning.
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DAILY PHOTO: Winter Walk
Taken on the South River Trail in DeKalb County, Georgia in December of 2010.
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POEM: The Walk
destinationless pilgrimage
no step more sacred than the last
spiraling into midnight
sore feet = shoes abandoned
every step one slides a mile inside
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BOOK REVIEW: On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz
On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a field guide to getting the most out of walks in the city; though it’s presented through a series of essays. City-centeredness is the book’s niche. There are tons of books that teach one how to get more out of the subtle signs and signals seen in nature, but we tend to miss the nature (and a good deal of the culture) in our city walks because we view them in a utilitarian fashion and because there is so much shouting for our attention that it’s easy to miss nature’s subtle cues.
The book consists of 12 chapters—each of which is organized around a city walk. Eleven of these walks are with experts who offer the author (and her readers) greater insight into some dimension of the city walk experience that is often lost to the limits of our attention. When I use the word “expert,” I use it broadly. The reader may find some of these individuals more worthy of the title “expert” than others—e.g. two among them are the author’s 19 month old son and her dog—but they all offer a unique insight. [You may recognize the author’s name from a popular book she wrote on dog behavior, and that’s a particular area of interest for her.] Others are the kind of experts that might testify in court or be asked to give a consultation at a corporation. Along the way, Horowitz inserts more general information on the psychology and science of human attention–and its limits—as is relevant to the larger discussion.
The twelve chapters are organized into three parts. The first part deals with the inanimate dimension of the city. Its four chapters deal with the things that children notice owing to either their height or their unjadedness, the natural materials of the city (rocks and biomass), fonts and signage, and the under-appreciated ordinary.
The second part explores the animate part of the city, including insects, animals, and humans. The reader will learn that–despite the fact that they may only see the occasional bird or squirrel—the city is teeming with non-human fauna. The two chapters that deal with humans take quite different perspectives. One is with the Director of the Project on Public Spaces, an expert on how cities are organized (by planning, organically, and by default) and the effect that this has on people and their movement through cities. The last chapter in this part is by a doctor whose expertise is making diagnoses in the style of Sherlock Holmes by means of close observation of the minutiae of a person’s appearance and posture.
The final part is about the sensory experience of a city walk. The first chapter in this section details a walk with a blind woman who is attuned to moving about the city using her other senses. There’s a chapter with an expert on sound, and the walk she takes with her dog—whose experience is largely informed by its olfactory sense. The last chapter is a short summation of what the author has learned and begun to apply in her own solo walks.
The book has few graphics, e.g. depictions of relevant art. There are source citations arranged by chapter in end-note form.
I found this book to be intriguing and beneficial. I think we could all benefit from city walkers who were more tuned in to what was going on around them. (Sadly, the trend seems to be going the other way.) I’d recommend this book for anyone who likes to take a walk, and nature lovers may find it unexpectedly fascinating.
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DAILY PHOTO: Sign of Our Times
Taken in Great Himalayan National Park in July of 2015
Back in my day, we had the “Scenic Overlook.” Now when you’re trekking they have the “Mobile Phone Access Point.” Thoreau would cry.
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DAILY PHOTO: The Snowy Side of the Mountain
Taken June 10, 2015 in Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP)
The beauty of mountains is that they show so many faces in such little space. We were on a sunny mountainside topped with tufts of dry grass. Then we crossed over a saddle-point on a ridgeline, and this was the new view.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 