Meditation on the Move

A mode of meditation practiced while walking in natural environments is identified through texts by Coleridge, Bashō, Rousseau, and Thoreau. This meditation is spontaneous, supple, and responsive mindfulness during movement. The connection is drawn between this practice and the 'rambling' or 'wandering' thinking encouraged by the Daoist master Zhuangzi. Walking in nature is especially conducive to such meditation due to rhythmic calm and an 'unselfing' where individuality is lost when immersed in the environment. The argument concludes that meditation on the move fosters a sense of the world as an integral whole that appears as a mysterious 'gift'.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 relates a mode of meditation with walking in natural environments. This mode is identified by drawing on texts from Coleridge, Bashō, Rousseau, and Thoreau. The style of meditation is a spontaneous, supple, and responsive mindfulness of the world through which one moves. The connection is noted between such meditation, in which Coleridge too engaged, and the ‘rambling’ or ‘wandering’ kind of thinking encouraged by the Daoist master, Zhuangzi. Relevant considerations of why walking in natural environments seems to be especially conducive to such meditation include rhythmic calm, and an ‘unselfing’ whereby, as Coleridge puts, it, ‘individuality is lost’ when immersed in the environments through which one walks. Finally, it is argued that meditation on the move is hospitable to certain conceptions of reality. In particular, it encourages a sense of the world as an integral whole that comes to presence for walkers as a mysterious ‘gift’.