Walking Without A Walker
This morning I went walking without a walker. At first glance you may think, oh, are you injured, or are you elderly? But I am not referring to a medical device that can be quite useful in walking and balancing oneself. I am talking about taking a walk and leaving the self at home. Wait!…what?
The self is simply the patterned theme of me, my, and I that typically arises in the center of each thought stream. In fact, try to find “the self,” and you will be looking for a very long time. Watch your thoughts for a little while, and you will discover that, most likely, 99.9% of thought revolves around you, so much so that this self starts to feel like a real entity. Thought centers on what you like, what you want, what you don’t like, what you don’t want, and even narration of what you are doing in this moment and how others compare to you. In the end, most of thought comes back to YOU.
Even if it first appears that thought might center around someone else, most likely that someone else has a relationship to you. This is just the way the human mind is. Let’s face it, the human mind is very self-absorbed. Of course, sometimes centering the self in the middle of an experience can be skillful. When it comes to self care, we may need to have the self at the center. But, unfortunately, the mind is just not that discriminating. As the thinking mind comes fully online during early childhood, and as we develop this sense of being in the world, all thoughts typically point back to ME.
On top of all this selfing, most of us spend our lifetime on autopilot prior to finding the practice of mindfulness. What this means is that we have inadvertently conditioned the mind to be very self-absorbed routinely.
When we practice mindfulness, we begin to be more aware of the mind. As we see mental activity, we begin to see thought arising and passing away and not nearly as under our control as we previously thought. This is good because now we can begin to dis-identify with thought. And, we can begin to work with thought. We can begin to question the truth of the thoughts that are arising. We can begin to let go of thought that is not leading to greater peace of mind. We can offer compassion to this mind that has been thinking the same thoughts for so long. We can offer kindness to our own heart; the heart that wants to soften and open to the greater world. We start to notice how this self-centered thinking can lead to disconnection with others. We begin to notice that when we are caught up in self absorption how burdensome it actually is. This is where the practice of walking without a walker can play a role in recovery from so much selfing.
When “I” am walking, lots of predictable things happen. I will most likely drift off from being present after a short while. I will begin to recount something that has already happened or begin planning or worrying about something that has yet to take place. But, if I am able to stay present, but still with the “I” front and center, I most likely will get caught up in opinions and views about what I am experiencing in the present moment. As this happens the world seems to narrow. I might get caught up in liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting. Again, the walk inevitably gets centered around ME and I lose touch with the greater world.
Just walking. This may not be a complete sentence but it is a complete mindfulness practice. Just walking. When we walk without a walker, we are invited to walk with full and complete awareness and equanimity. We shift our conditioned perspective of seeing the world through the lens of self and other, and we step into a more direct experience of life. When we can do this, the present moment opens up in a big beautiful way. Everything internally and externally becomes limitless (you’ll need to try this to really get it!). Colors become more vibrant, shapes and textures burst forth and experience becomes a vast expanse. It is so refreshing. It is calming to step into a perspective in which I am part of everything else instead of being separate from everything around me. For just a moment, it is nice for the mind to rest in its more natural state, free from so much selfing.
