Vipassana Meditation : Lectures On Insight Meditation by Venerable

Walking MeditationTake the walking meditation seriously. By merely doing walking meditation,one can reach Arahantship! Take the Venerable Subhadda the last Arahantdisciple of the Buddha, as an example.Bring your attention to the foot during walking meditation. Note themovement with sharp awareness. At the beginning, note the step in one partonly, mentally note 'right' and 'left'.Do not close your eyes but keep them half-closed, looking ahead about fouror five feet.Do not bend the head too low. This will cause tension and dizziness in ashort time. Do not look at your feet. Your mind will get distracted.When you follow the movement of the foot, you must not lift the feet toohigh.The objects to be noted are increased gradually, that is, the number ofparts of a step that are observed is gradually increased.Later one may watch the step in one part about ten minutes, followed bythree parts 'lifting', 'pushing', 'lowering'. Finally it may be further increased to:- 'intending', 'lifting', 'pushing', 'lowering', 'touching', 'pressing'.Please consider this - within one hour of walking meditation, the mind issure to wander off quite a few times.You must not look around here and there during walking meditation. Youhave had and will have many years to look around. If you do so during theretreat, you say good-bye to concentration. Take note of the 'desire' to lookaround. The wandering eye is a very difficult problem for a yogi.At least five to six hours each of walking and sitting meditation per day isrecommended.Mindfulness of Daily ActivitiesMindfulness Meditation is Buddha's way of life.Awareness of daily activities is the life of a yogi. Once the yogi fails toobserve an activity he loses his life. That is, he is not a yogi, because he isdevoid of sati, samádhi and paññá.Be mindful of each and every daily activity.51