Walking Meditation

by Steven Smith

In walking meditation, we become aware of the movement of each step. It is a way of using a natural part of life to increase mindfulness. Once you learn the practice, you can do it almost anywhere. It helps us feel fully present on the earth.

Find a place where you can walk back and forth, about ten to twenty steps in length. Keep the hands stationary, either behind the back, at the sides, or in front.

Feel the sensations of standing. Be aware of contact with the ground, of pressure and tension. Feel the entire energy field of the body, how it is all participating in this standing. Feel the hands hanging down...the shoulders weighted...the lower back, the pelvis...each having its own part in keeping the balance of the standing position.

Now bring your attention to the lower part of the body, from the hips downward, the primary foundation of standing. Staying aware, very slowly shift your weight from the left and back of your body to the right, noticing as you do how the sensations change as your balance shifts. Now hold your weight on the left for a moment, aware of the particular sensations in the leg... hips, thighs, legs, knees, calves, feet, toes, not particularly noticing or identifying those parts of the body, but letting the awareness fill the legs. Feel hardness, tension, tightness, heat, vibration, toughness, stiffness, whatever is there.

Now, keeping your weight on the left side, bring your awareness to the right and feel the relative lightness, emptiness, subtler sensations on the right leg. Now, with your awareness still on the right leg, slowly shift your weight to the right side. Let the awareness seep in right down to the bone, sensing the variations of hardness and softness, toughness, and fluidity, pressure, vibration, weight.

Now bring your awareness to the left side again, and move as if you are very slowly pouring water from a full vessel into an empty one. Notice all the changes as you shift your weight to the left side. With your eyes open just enough to hold your balance, very slowly peel your right foot off the ground and move it forward and place it on the ground. With your awareness on the right, shift your weight, bring awareness to the left, feel from the hips and buttocks down the sides, the whole range of sensations. Continue stepping slowly, keeping your awareness on the sensations. When you get to the end of the path, pause briefly and turn around. Center yourself, and be aware of the first step as you begin again.

You can do the walking meditation at different paces: brisk, normal, and very slow and meticulous. The idea is not to walk slowly; the idea is to move mindfully. As your mind begins to quiet, you will see how we notice more when we move slowly. More becomes clear, we get to feel the inter-relationship of mind and body.

If you like labeling, you can say to yourself "walking/walking" or "step/step," or "right/left." Not using the labeling as a cadence that becomes rote, but using it to encourage the awareness of the sensations of walking.

After some time, you can slow down a bit and actually feel more or less two sections of walking, the lift swing and the placing. So the label might be "lift" as you lift and swing, and then "place." It is a little slower, but not so slow that you lose your balance. Lifting , placing, stop. Feel the stopping, feel the turning. Lift and place, it is very simple, you are really just being with walking.

You are being really detailed, you are not assessing, you are not evaluating. It is a bare awareness, feeling the flow of sensations. When you lift, move, place, notice the shift of weight, the heel peeling off the toe, even the ground. Or you might notice the knee bending, the calf tensing, or the thigh being taut...sometimes you may notice the whole leg simultaneously, another time you might focus on tingling in the toe. Lifting, moving, placing.

Holding your visual field to a minimum--6,8,9 feet--is helpful for a period of time. Then, when you feel like you just can't take it anymore, open up your field of vision, look around, and just be aware of seeing and hearing for a while. It is important to keep a lightness of being.

If you feel flooded with thoughts, just stop for a moment and be aware of thoughts. Let the flood of thoughts come and go and then go back to the walking. You begin to see that nothing is a distraction, as long as you recognize what is there.

Think of it like this... you are starting off on a trek, and you just landed in Katmandu, You are going up to Mustang Valley....you are going to trek up one of these mountains, and there is the goal of reaching the top, there's the desire to get there, and then there's the realization that there is a whole process of getting there, and, along the way, more and more, there is the realization that the process is the goal. At first, you don't have your walking body...you have been busy and confined, muscles aren't loose, bones are a bit stiff....it takes a while for there to be a rhythm between mind and body, to get into that rhythm, to be carried by that rhythm, so that the experience becomes being carried by the mountain, and then the second winds come...and the body just feels in flow, it feels in harmony, it feels in sync with the mountain itself and the movements up and down.

It is the same way in meditation--first it's a stretch, and you feel a resistance, the push, the upward climb....but you can just take your time, keep learning how to settle back, lean back, and tune in to the process, until more and more, you feel carried by it itself, and it becomes restful.

next, Loving-Kindness Meditation

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

from The Wall Street Journal

"This is not a matter of virtue -- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work
of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting,
which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret
everything through this lens of self."

http://reno.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html

The Benefits of Biofeedback

It's gaining ground as a stress-management tool

Because she was planning to get pregnant, Janelle (who preferred not to give her last

name) decided last year to go off powerful medication for stress-induced migraines in

favor of a more fetus-friendly therapy.

With sensors attached to her fingertips, neck, and abdomen, she spent 20 sessions

learning to relax her muscles and slow her breathing and heart rate while watching a

computer monitor for proof of the desired result. Eventually, she was able to do the

work on her own. "The migraine pain doesn't go away completely," says the 39-year

old from Bethesda, Md., who has remained off medication since her son's birth two

months ago. "But it's been greatly reduced, and I'm able to deal with it better."

Like meditation and yoga, the biofeedback method that Janelle now swears by is

enjoying a sort of renaissance; while it's been around for some 40 years, a growing

body of research has brought it to the mainstream, indicating that it can relieve some

hard-to-manage conditions exacerbated by stress. Many major hospitals and clinics,

including Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Duke University Medical Center,

now offer biofeedback to people with hypertension and jaw pain as well as headaches,

for example. And new pocket-size gadgets have hit the market that let you do it yourself.

Biofeedback's major appeal is that one series of sessions purportedly teaches a set of

skills you can use for life—without side effects. And it's pre-emptive. "Biofeedback teaches

you to identify early signs that stress is starting to get to you and to bring that stress

reaction down before it causes physical symptoms," explains Frank Andrasik, a professor

of psychology at the University of West Florida in Pensacola who serves as editor-in-chief

of the journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

Instructions on a computer screen tell you when to inhale and exhale, for example, so

that you practice slowing down, ideally to about six breaths per minute. The point is to

calm your body's autonomic nervous system, which raises your blood pressure and heart

rate when you're stressed. One important effect: an increase in your "heart rate variability,"

those subtle moment-to-moment fluctuations in the pace of your heartbeat.

Research suggests that lower variability is associated with a higher risk of dying from heart

disease. Tall, even waves cross the computer screen as your breathing slows and the stress

response calms; the waves are short and spiky when you're on edge. Sensors also detect an

increase in your hand's skin temperature, a sign you've lowered the level of "fight or flight"

stress hormones that shunt blood away from your extremities and have entered a state

practitioners call "focused calm." The key is to practice so that you get there automatically

when the traffic jams or the boss screams.

In part, biofeedback's resurgence stems from technological advances that provide instant,

easy-to-understand information, says social worker Mary Lee Esty, head of the Neurotherapy

Center in Bethesda, where Janelle was treated. One computer software program displays an

open-mouthed smiling dolphin when all systems are calm and then jumbles the photo if

breathing becomes uneven or rapid. "The timing of the feedback is absolutely critical to

learning what feels right," Esty explains.

Still seeking proof.

Whether biofeedback actually teaches permanent skills remains unproven. But some long-term

studies suggest that patients are still employing the techniques successfully years later. And

though there's evidence that the therapy works better than sham treatments to lower stress-

related aches and pains, it hasn't been tested against standard treatments like aspirin for tension

headaches—though for many people, like Janelle, getting off medication is the goal. A study

published last year in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that people

with mild hypertension who had four weekly sessions of biofeedback experienced a significantly

greater lowering of their blood pressure than those who had stress reduction training without

the feedback.

Evidence is stronger, Andrasik says, that biofeedback helps with non-stress-related conditions

like chronic constipation and urinary incontinencee, where it's used to retrain the muscles

involved in waste elimination. A newer technique called neurofeedback, which uses scalp

sensors to measure brain waves, appears promising for helping restore normal brain wave

function disrupted by head injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and severe migraines.

The biggest caveat for many people will be lack of insurance coverage. While Aetna and

Kaiser Permanente cover biofeedback for certain stress-related conditions, many companies

don't. The Neurotherapy Center's five-session treatment plan for stress costs about $500;

Janelle's 20 sessions—typical for migraine patients—cost her $2,000 out of pocket.

If you proceed, be sure your practitioner is certified by the Biofeedback Certification Institute

of America, since anyone can hang out a shingle; typically, certified practitioners are also

licensed psychologists. Realize, too, that long-term success often rests, literally, in the hands

of the patient. Psychologist Deborah Stokes, who practices biofeedback in Alexandria, Va., t

ells her patients to practice warming their hands—using a $20 home device from Bio-Medical

Instruments—for 20 minutes a night between sessions. Janelle says she still occasionally

practices the techniques she learned and called on them during childbirth. "It really helped

me focus," she says. "I was able to give birth without an epidural."

By Deborah Kotz, US News & World Report