Hallo, my name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, therapist and college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to guide your Ru (Confucian) meditation using the postures of standing and walking.

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The posture of standing meditation is fairly straightforward, since you already know the posture of the upper body when you do quiet-sitting on a chair or cross-legged quiet-sitting. While standing, your upper body remains the same as those postures.

Standing posture is very fit for moments when you need to stand for a longer while. For instance, when you ride a bus, a train, or other vehicle, especially when the vehicle is crowded, you need a space for yourself to go through the stress created by unhappy travels. In these moments, you can simply stand straight, or lean on something, focus upon your breath, and start to do Ru meditation according to the method I told you before. Or, another instance is that, before you enter into an auditorium for public speaking, you can simply stand up straightly, take a deep breath, and start to gather all the surrounding energy for courage, composure and confidence. In a deep meditative state, you can even start to visualize your speech in front of those dedicated audience so as to prepare yourself well for the speech.

In the spiritual level, the standing posture is very fit for the description given by the Ru tradition to an upright and outstanding junzi: they are “carrying the heaven, and standing on the earth.” In the terms of the Classic of Change, a junzi would combine the virtue of heaven as they work diligently towards daily renewal and self-strengthening, and the virtue of earth as they are all-caring and nurturing towards the other living beings. So, while standing up and meditating, please feel the unique position you take between the heaven and the earth as an upright Junzi who is dedicated to daily renewal and all-encompassing universal love.

Many postures I introduced in the past can be practiced as a package. For instance, before sleeping, you can do cross-legged quiet-sitting first, and then, sleeping meditation second. And another best package of practice is that, first, you do quiet-sitting on a chair, then, you stand up for a while, and finally, you start to walk. Therefore, in the following, I will start to introduce the first moving posture of Ru meditation in this series of broadcast: that is to meditate while walking.

There are beautiful passages in the Analects that record Confucius’s saying while he was walking with his students. One of my favorites is the last verse of Chapter 10. No interpreter in the commentarial history of this verse exactly knows what happened here, including me. But I will try my best to render it in accessible English, and in my own way. It says, when Confucius was walking in a mountain, he saw several beautiful hen-pheasants. While he looked at them, those pheasants flew away, and after circling around for a while, they settled down again. At this moment, Confucius said: “The hen-pheasant on the hill bridge – How timely! How timely!” Then, Zi Lu, one of Confucius’s close students, cupped his hands to greet those pheasants. These pheasants flapped their wings for several times, and then, took to the air. And this is the end of the scenario.

The fact that this verse is located at the end of one Chapter which talks about how Confucius sleeps, sits, stands, walks, looks, expresses his face, speaks, eats, cooks, and does all other details following his sense of ritual-propriety at evolving situations of life is very telling. In the context of Ru meditation, what this seemingly very obscure verse speaks to exactly what I tried to convey in previous podcasts of Ru meditation; that is, Confucius acclaims that a continually self-cultivating junzi, like those beautiful hen-pheasants, can timely move, and timely settle, so as to extend an inner state of energy equilibrium or centrality, to both static and moving moments of human life. This is actually what the Ruist idea “ritual-propriety” 禮 is all about: a properly ritualized human deed would let involved living beings in a specific situation harmoniously and dynamically fit together.

Understood in this perspective, the simplest moving posture of Ru meditation, the one of walking while meditating, is of crucial significance. This is because, for meditation practitioners, they may have formed a bad habit of enjoying stillness, while disliking movement. For instance, whenever they close their eyes, sit quietly, and focus upon their breathing, they feel great. However, whenever they need to deal with real human issues, or simply start to move, they will feel disturbed, distracted, and cannot bundle themselves up. Because of this, a discipline of moving meditation using the same method of Ru breathing will greatly balance our sense of body kinematics, and thus, integrate our life as a dedicated and functional whole. On the other hand, professionals in today’s world are usually sitting for too long a time, and routinely straining their eyes and bodies before screens too. In this case, sitting meditation may cause further harm to their body if they cannot command an alternative approach of standing or walking meditation.

Good, enough for the philosophy part of walking meditation in the Ru tradition. Let’s move on to talk of its method. (Pause, first half)

For the practice of walking meditation, it is better to do it while your breath starts to enter its second meditative stage, the so-called stage of “following breath,” according to the method of Ru breathing I explained before. This is because in the first stage of Ru breathing, your primary focus is to use counting to concentrate your heartmind upon your breath. In this initial stage, if you simultaneously walk while counting your breath, it will add another action to your initiative of meditation, which will make it harder. However, in the second stage of following breath, your breath has become calmer, slower, and deeper, and your attention has also been easily following each part of your breathing. Like what I suggest you to contemplate your body and contemplate your environment while you follow your breath, you can start to walk as well. Because the concentrated attention can now easily encompass each detail of your body movement, through walking meditation, you can furthermore integrate your moving body, your heartmind, the air, and the environment as a harmonious unity, which is the goal of Ru meditation.

Since it is better to do walking meditation when you succeed to follow your breath, beginning practitioners may need to do quiet-sitting on a chair, or standing meditation for a while before they walk. This is the reason why I said that some postures can be practiced as a package: sitting, standing, and walking. However, for adept practitioners, they can easily focus their heartmind upon breathing and follow their breath, so it would not be an issue for them to do walking meditation at any time they want.

There are several points for the method of walking Ru meditation:

• match your slow and deep breath with your steps. This may mean a few steps for inhale, a few steps for exhale, and fewer steps for the short pause, depending upon how slow your breathing is. However, it is important to put the attention of your heartmind simultaneously upon your breath, and upon moving details of your body.
• when moving, be aware of each step of your walking. You raise one of your legs, let the heel of one foot touch the ground first, and then, do feel how the bottom of foot, and your toe, touch the ground one after another. The same goes to the other foot. While contemplating a still body requires your attention to each part of your body, the same goes to your moving body, particularly the parts of lower legs and the feet, when you are walking. So, we will do walking meditation like this: a deep inhale, slowly walk, your left heel touches the ground, your right toe starts to leave the ground, then, the sole of your left foot settles; while your right foot leaves the ground, your left toe settles too. Then, a very relaxed exhale. The smooth move of your whole body is a subtle and beautiful interaction between the yang and the yin powers of the universe and yourself. So, heels down, toes up; one knee bends, another straights out; one step forward, one breath downward. If you can succeed to put your attention upon all these moving details of your body while walking, you realize the pattern-principle, li 理, in the context of meditative walking.
• feel the solid ground! That’s the primary component of your environment you need to contemplate when you are doing walking meditation. Also, all the other components of your environment are worth contemplating. I once did walking meditation on the beach, in the forest, in the parks, in the college campus, etc. In these cases, you can encompass the ocean, the sand, the wind, the tree, the chirping bird, the twisting worms, the historical building, and all the other components of your environment into your contemplation while walking and joyfully breathing. Believe me, this will be a transformative human and cosmic experience.
• The position of your upper body will be like the one when you do quiet-sitting on a chair or the cross-legged quiet-sitting, including how your position your backbone, chest, head, eyes, and tongue. However, because your body is slowly moving, your arms will swing a little bit, and this is totally normal; make the arm relaxed, and swing natural following the rhythm of your moving body.
• You can walk in straight lines, back and forth, just like what I am doing in the video; or walk along the four lines of a square. When reaching one end point, turn your body slowly, and feel how your muscles, bones, and your heartmind work together to make this smooth and peaceful turn. A key to understand moving forms of Ru meditation is that no matter whether your body is moving or not, you can always feel the inner quietude in your heartmind. This implies you extend the state of centrality, the one of energy equilibrium, to both still and moving parts of your life, which is really what Ru meditation is all about.

Good, these are the five major points for walking Ru meditation. Before concluding this session, I will share you my best experience of walking meditation. That happens during one night, perhaps around 12 o’clock am, when I practiced cross-legged quiet-sitting for a while. I entered the third stage of breathing, the one of settled breath. Then, I stood up and started to walk. What marvels me is that I keep myself on the same stage of settled breath for a long time. With only a slice of air breathed in, my breathing can be suspended there, and it is robust enough to support my walking. I feel my entire body is extremely light, transparent, and my mind is so clear of everything that happens in and surrounding me, which extends as far as the entire universe. This is what happens when the state of centrality is extended from a still body to a moving one because of the accumulative efforts of my practice of Ru meditation. Zhu Xi, one of the greatest Ruist philosophers after Confucius, once described his experience of Ru meditation as “It feels like lying on the clouds, and walking in the sky. I dare not talk of it.” Yes, I think I need to stop here since I already talked of it.

I Hope you have a nice walk today, and Take care!