One Time, One Meeting

“I’m on fire!” exclaimed the tall young man shooting hoops in the gym.

It was a winter afternoon. He and I and a student monitor were the only occupants of the Joyce and Walton Family Center for Health and Wellness, a spacious facility at Alfred University. He was single-mindedly honing his skills, and I was walking at a relaxed, moderate pace around the courts. Hearing his words, I looked over in his direction, nodded, and went on my way. Moments later, I heard the pleasing swish of the ball dropping through the hoop. And then another, and another.

Not long afterward, as I was completing another round, I watched the ball make a high, graceful arc and drop cleanly through the basket, not touching the rim. This time I raised a thumb. Seeing me, he called out, “We’re a team!”

Coming around a third time, I watched my newly acquired teammate making shot after shot, not missing a beat. Once again I nodded, and his face broke into a smile. “You stay right there!” he called out good-naturedly, pointing to where I was walking, as if my presence were the secret of his continuing success.

Why, you may be wondering, would the ambulatory presence of a retired professor, fifty years his senior, have exerted a benign influence—or any influence at all—on a player’s athletic performance? It may of course have been a coincidence and nothing more. And, ultimately, this serendipitous occurrence defies rational explanation. But it’s worth noting that at the time, I was not only taking my daily constitutional. I was also practicing walking meditation, as taught by the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.

In his book Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh distills the essence of the practice:

Walking meditation can be very enjoyable. We walk slowly, alone or with friends, if possible in some beautiful place. Walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking—walking not in order to arrive, but just to walk. The purpose is to be in the present moment and, aware of our breathing and our walking, to enjoy each step. Therefore we have to shake off all worries and anxieties, not thinking of the future, not thinking of the past, just enjoying the present moment. . . . When we are able to take one step peacefully and happily, we are working for the cause of peace and happiness for the whole of humankind.

Known in Vietnamese Zen as kinh hàhn and in Japanese as kinhin, the traditional practice of walking meditation serves multiple purposes. To begin with, it is a way of stretching the body between long periods of seated meditation. After being immobilized for as long as forty-five minutes, the body needs to move, and walking meditation answers that need. Beyond that practical necessity, walking meditation trains one’s mind to remain stable, still, and alert even when moving through a changing external environment. Although we are moving, we remain in immovable awareness. For this reason, the practice of walking meditation is sometimes viewed as a bridge between the steady, one-pointed concentration of seated meditation and the multifarious demands of everyday life. Mindful walking is a kind of rehearsal, as it were, for the more difficult practice of mindful living.

Yet, for Thich Nhat Hanh, all of these purposes are subordinate to the one overarching aim of walking meditation, which is to cultivate peace in ourselves and for the benefit of everyone around us. In his book Touching Peace, he explains:

There is no need for us to struggle to arrive somewhere else. We know that our final destination is the cemetery. Why are we in a hurry to get there? Why not step in the direction of life, which is in the present moment? When we practice walking meditation for even a few days, we will undergo a deep transformation, and we will learn how to enjoy peace in each moment of our life. . . . Peace is every step. We have already arrived.

Years ago, I heard the story of Thich Nhat Hanh and his entourage of monks and nuns entering a noisy American airport. They were practicing walking meditation. As they passed by, the ambient noise died down, and for as long as they were present, the atmosphere grew calmer. At his North American retreats during the 1990s, I too walked with Thich Nhat Hanh, and on one memorable morning in 2001, in Amherst, Massachusetts, I walked directly behind him. I felt the deep peace emanating from his presence, and it awakened its counterpart in me.

Perhaps, in a less dramatic way, something of that kind occurred in the Joyce Walton Center on that winter afternoon. I haven’t seen that student-athlete since, though I often walk in the gym. But the experience of peaceful communion I shared with him has stayed with me, and I’d like to think that, wherever he might be, he remembers it as well.

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Walking meditation can be very enjoyable: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (Parallax, 1991), 27-28.

There  is no need: Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living (Parallax, 1992), 45.