Tech: AI and future of Walking Meditation

Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Rumi: "Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it."

Walking meditation was recommended by the Buddha for calm exercise while keeping the breath in mind rather than always only sitting still.

It was made more popular in recent times by Vietnamese American monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee (by his friend MLK) Thich Nhat Hanh.

It can be its own contemplative practice. There are, after all, four positions of the body to be mindful of in sati-sampajanna, "mindfulness and clear comprehension" -- walking, standing, sitting, or lying down.

Mindful of each intention and bodily movement, one can mentally note, "Intention to lift foot, lifting lifting; intention to place foot, placing placing," and so on very slowly for each movement. This keeps one in the present moment.

• Sati is "mindfulness" in Buddhism
• Mindfulness has four kinds of development
• (Not to be confused with Goddess Sati female self-immolation)

Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. with Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Or it can be a continuation of mindfulness-of-in-and-out-breathing, taken off the mat and into the world, usually a parikrama or dedicated walkway for meditation.

It is usually done slowly, very slowly, and calmly, remaining mindful (non-judgmental bare awareness of what is with extreme acceptance of all that is at this moment).

How is that going to work when we're all riding AI roller-skates that speed us up while keeping us from falling with no thought of balance?

The AI will balance for us like a gyrating Segway (standing two-wheel transport that doesn't fall over due to the practical implementation of a physics principle utilizing centripetal force).

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How to

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(Wiki) Walking meditation, sometimes known as kinhin (Chinese 經行, Pinyin jīngxíng, Romaji kyōgyō, Korean gyeonghyaeng, Vietnamese kinh hành), is a practice within several forms of Buddhism that involve movement and periods of walking between long periods of sitting meditation [1].

In different forms, the practice is common in various traditions of both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.

Practice

Practitioners typically walk clockwise [keeping to the right a revered person or object, originally a stupa or pagoda] around a room while holding their hands in a gesture with one hand closed in a fist while the other hand grasps or covers the fist (Chinese 叉手, Pinyin chā shǒu, Rōmaji shashu [2]).

During walking meditation each step is taken after each full breath [3]. The pace of walking meditation can be either slow (several steady steps per each breath) or brisk, almost to the point of jogging [2].

Etymology

The term kinhin consists of the Chinese words 經, meaning "to go through (like the thread in a loom)," with "sutra" as a secondary meaning, and 行, meaning "walk."

Taken literally, the phrase means "to walk straight back and forth." More