Letting Things Speak For Themselves

  During the guided meditation tonight, I experienced what it was like to just walk in the walking meditation. "Just walk": there is nothing special about it, and there is nothing that profound in it either. The action speaks for itself, and simply requires little qualification or explanation. Why complicate the matter? Just embody it as it is, and one will fully understand and appreciate how it is for them.
   On the other hand, what normally happens in our lives is that we complicate processes by comparing one thing to another. We even have metrics which describe how many calories a person burns by walking a certain pace, in a certain manner, and a certain distance along the way. In this regard, things become comparable and measurable, to the point where a person focuses more on the so-called measures than the actual discovery of doing. No sooner does this happen than a person will start comparing how they do it to someone else, and this goes on ad infinitum, until the very act of walking itself becomes a sort of insitution.
   When we do the walking meditation in our group practice, there is simply no presumption as to what it's supposed to mean or supposed to do. This is the joy the comes from discovering the walking from one moment to the next. It speaks for itself, and there is no need to say how to 'walk well' as opposed to walking poorly. In this way, the walking becomes a teaching and learning moment that does not involve comparisons, judgments or rules. These kinds of moments of 'just doing' might teach people to trust their minds rather than relying on comparisons or judgments to find their way.