The walking cure

Walking, in the sense of dedicating a day to going for a walk, is to me an almost sacred rite. If there is one thing that is almost certain to transform a day on which I wake up feeling anxious, it is going out for a long walk. Once I get out there, everything works together to gradually bring about this transformation: the gentle rhythm of the physical exercise; the chance to enjoy the world at leisure and with no agenda, whether it is relatively unspoilt nature or a more human landscape; and the fact that once a walk is set there is no pressure to make any decision about anything except when to stop for a sandwich or a flask of coffee. (Note that once the flask and sandwich are made up, this cure for mental ills involves a financial outlay of zero, and has no carbon footprint either.)

A little while ago I went to a well known retreat centre for a few days of ‘mindful walking.’ This was something of a disaster for me. Despite beautiful surroundings, lovely teachers and a congenial group of fellow retreatees, in this case everything conspired against me having a relaxing, let alone enlightening experience. Like most retreat centres, you're encouraged here to abandon devices and Internet so as to unhook from these sources of stress and excess stimulation. The irony was that I found that I'm so reliant on various YouTube meditation videos and apps to draw me back into sleep when I wake up in the night that without access to these I slept badly and laid awake worrying. But I also found that ‘mindful walking’ didn't really work for me.

With meditation, the only practice that is really effective for me these days is a free or ‘do nothing’ meditation, where I put myself under absolutely no pressure to focus on anything, and let my mind do exactly as it wants. So perhaps it isn't surprising that a ‘one-pointed’ approach to mindful walking doesn't work so well for me. Once I am directed, however gently, to pay attention to the sensations in my feet while walking, or to the surroundings, I get caught up in the usual self-judgements about my mind wandering elsewhere, and the walk is spoiled. On the other hand, if I simply have no preference about whether I notice my surroundings or whether I go off into some chain of mental fantasies, the environment and process of walking work their magic on me, without me having to exert my will to do anything to bring it about. Walking has always therefore been for me, even before I knew the slightest thing about meditation, a perfect meditation practice.

Isle of Kerrera, near Oban, Scotland, with Cathy. Flask and lunch in view.