Vipassana Meditation : Lectures On Insight Meditation by Venerable

When you practice walking meditation, you must not close your eyes.Instead, your eyes must be half-closed (that means, relax and keep your eyesnormal) and you should look at a place on the floor about four or five feet infront of your foot.You must not bend your head too low. If you bend your head too low, youwill soon feel tension in your neck or shoulders. Also, you may have aheadache or dizziness. You must not look at your foot. If you look at your foot,you cannot concentrate well on the movement. Nor must you look around hereand there. Once you look around, the mind goes with the eyes; then yourconcentration breaks. You may have a tendency or desire to look around whenyou feel that someone is coming towards you or passing in front of you. Thattendency or desire to look around must be very attentively observed and notedas 'tendency' or 'wanting to look' until it has disappeared. When the tendencyor desire has disappeared, you won't look around. Then you can maintain yourconcentration. So, please be careful not to look around so that you canmaintain your concentration and make progress in your attainment ofconcentration by walking meditation. Your hands should be locked together infront or behind. If you feel you should change the position of your hands, youmay do so, but mindfully.When you have an intention to change position, you should note'intending, intending'. Even then, you should change the position very slowlyand every action and movement involved in the act of changing must beobserved. You must not be unmindful of any movement or action. When youhave changed the position of your hands, then you should continue to note themovements of the foot as before.In sitting meditation too, those who have some experience in meditationalpractice should sit at least 45 minutes without changing position. Beginnersshould sit at least 20-30 minutes without changing position. If a beginner isunable to bear the severe pain, which arises, he may feel like changing hisposture. Before doing so, he must note the intention to change posture, as'intending, intending'. Then he should change his posture very, very slowlybeing aware of all the movements and actions involved in the changing ofpostures. When he has changed his posture, he should then return to theabdominal movement, the primary object, and note as usual.Silent AwarenessIn a meditation retreat, you must not do any action or movement quickly.You must slow down all actions and movements as much as possible so thatyou can apply mindfulness to every minute movement or action of the body. Athome, you need not slow down all these actions and movements but rather,they should be normal, and mindfully observed. All actions and movementsmust be mindfully noted as they really are. That is general mindfulness. In aretreat, you must slow down all actions and movements because you have15