The Way Out Is In / Hiking Zen (Episode #110)

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Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode of the podcast series, The Way Out Is In.

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I’m Jo Confino, a leadership coach working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems change.

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And I am Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.

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And today we are going to be talking about walking and hiking meditation. Now most people think of meditation as something you do sitting on a cushion in a meditation hall or in your own zendo but actually Thich Nhat Hanh brought walking meditation out of the monastery and into the world.

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The way out is in.

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Hello everyone, I’m Jo Confino.

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And I’m Brother Phap Huu.

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And today we are joined by Brother Phap Xa. And Brother Phap Xa is a monk who has been a monastic for many years. And actually today is a very auspicious day because it turns out is the 25th anniversary to the day that Brother Phap Xa actually came to Plum Village and joined his first retreat. So Brother Phap Xa, very welcome to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Sitting Still hut. You have recently returned to Plum Village from Germany. So what is it like to be back home?

00:02:03

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It’s so nice to sit here with both of you. It’s great to be back in Plum Village. It’s not that I did not sometimes come back, but in 2007, I went to Blue Cliff Monastery, where I stayed three years. And the last 15 years, I’ve been in the EIAB in Germany in our center.

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Great. So, brother, welcome. And the reason we’ve invited Brother Phap Xa to this particular episode is because he recently, alongside his co-conspirator, Phap Luu, has published a book called Hiking Zen. So… Brother Phap Huu, let’s start off. So as I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of people think meditation is about sitting still. And Thich Nhat Hanh, one of his core practices was about, as I call it, meditation in movement and particularly walking meditation. So can you tell us what was it about this practice that was in a sense revolutionary?

00:03:11

So walking meditation has always been there in the Buddhist tradition and practice in varied ways. Like in some Zen tradition, they do fast walking meditation. And then in different Zen traditions they do slow walking meditation, which is one breath for one step. And this practice has been practiced for many generations actually, but Plum Village thanks to our teacher Thay, he has really made it like a staple practice, not just sitting meditation, which is more known in the world as when you think about Zen or you speak about meditation, you have the image of somebody sitting cross-legged, still and solid, which is a very beautiful image, but that’s very limiting to the whole picture of meditation. First of all, meditation is in every action. That’s the way we look at it in our tradition. Meditation is to be engaged in the way we stand, the way sit, the way we move, even the way lay down there is an attention when we bring our mindfulness to how we are in the present moment. But particularly in our tradition, it comes to, it comes to the realization from suffering. When Thay was exiled from Vietnam and even he would shared about the time when he was unwell in his health and spirit due to all the causes and conditions, it was walking meditation that gave him a grounding practice, a very physical, embodied practice that would upgrade his presence and his way of being with emotions and feelings. When we are overwhelmed with emotions such as grief or anger or even hatred, sitting still and letting all those emotions arise may be quite overwhelming for us. And therefore bringing our everyday mundane ways of being like walking and making it a practice becomes… Suddenly, your spiritual dimension evolves and it grows and it develops into different ways. And so walking meditation for Thay, he would explain to us, was in a way like sometimes his life jacket. And particularly when he was exiled and finding the feeling of loss and the feeling of like where is home now? And the insight of I have arrived, I am home, which is the essence of living happily in the present moment. That is a core teaching from the Buddha. He was able to apply it and he discovered that wherever he walks on earth, that could be home. So whether you’re in Europe or in North America, in South America or in Asia. If you have the ability to ground yourself in the motion, and here we speak particularly about walking with every step that you take, it can be the ripening of the insight of peace is here in every step. I have arrived, I’m home wherever I go. And Thay used to go to a lot of the peace marches also in the United States. And for him, when he does the peace march, it’s not just to call for peace, but it is to embody the peace. So the walking has to be the peace, the way of being has to the peace that we are calling for. So this has become a foundational practice in Thay’s way of developing his spiritual practice, and this is he has transmitted to us, and he has, you know, famously told us, like when you walk, you don’t talk, you only walk. One of the most difficult practice. And then in one year, he saw that us, his students, we weren’t practicing well. So he made a kind of business card that had just assigned 100%, meaning that whenever we walk, we have to walk with 100% of our awareness. And Master Lin Chi, which were from this lineage, also said that the miracle is not to walk on water. But the miracle is to walk on this earth. So we can see the wisdoms of our spiritual teachers keeps reminding us that the miracle of just walking can be applied, like you could touch this miracle.

00:08:26

Beautiful, brother. We’ll come back to some of those themes a bit later in the podcast. But for those who are listening who may not have come across walking meditation before, what we’d like to do is be quite practical and just help people to sort of understand this practice. And in your book, you said you have very clearly practices that help people to ground themselves in this meditation. So can you just maybe just talk to us, just very practically what is if someone says, okay, I’d like to go out after this podcast and practice. How do you actually go about practicing walking meditation?

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Well, for us, one thing that we do is to coordinate our breathing with our steps and that really helps us to be really in the present moment and not be lost in our thinking. Because very many times, like when we walk, we’re actually thinking about many things. So we’re walking on the earth, but we’re not aware that we’re working on the earth and we’re breathing, but we’re not aware that we are breathing. So for us just to be aware of our feet really touching the earth and really being aware of the sensation of our foot touching the earth and that is different if we walk on a forest path or if we walk on the road. It has a very different feel to it and it really helps us to ground ourselves and to really feel the connection with the earth under our feet and we feel the ability that the earth under our feet has. And what we can also do is to coordinate it with our breathing. So we are aware that, for example, with the in-breath, we take two steps or we take three steps. And with the outbreath, we also do, we take two, three steps or maybe we take four steps. It’s not so important how many steps we take, but the main thing is that we ground ourselves in the present moment. And so that is a way for us to really, to be with ourselves, to be our steps, to be without breathing and not too many worries. You know, because when we walk, very often we plan for the future and maybe we also have some worries about the future. And so it’s, for us, it’s really an important practice to come back to the present moment because then we can also recognize that there’s actually many wonders that are happening in the present moment inside and around us. And already it’s a big wonder to be able to breathe, but it’s also a big wonder to be able to be in touch with many forms and colors that are around us, and so for us, we usually like to do walking meditation directly here in nature, and that’s also one of the things that make me very happy of being back in Plum Village is that it’s a very beautiful and very vast nature directly around us. So already when I step out of my bedroom there’s already the trees and I can already be in touch with the nature that is directly there. And so that was very healing for our teacher is to walk and to be in touch with nature and to feel that actually there’s a lot of healing coming from being in touch with nature and that’s also very much what I experienced myself, like just the joy of walking and being there in nature. And it’s not very complicated. We don’t need to think. Actually it’s better not to think, so just to really, to have an opportunity to be directly in touch with nature.

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Thank you. And Brother Phap Xa, tell me about speed, because walking meditation doesn’t have one speed, it’s a bit like a car. So in the meditation hall, it is like gear one, where it’s sort of one breath for each time you move a step. And then I remember once many, many years ago being here for the winter retreat, as it was then, and Thich Nhat Hanh was taking everyone, was leading a meditation walk in New Hamlet, and it has quite a steep hill up. And he was walking sort of quite gently, and then suddenly he broke into a run. And he ran up the hill and he saw like 500 people behind sort of suddenly having to pick up their heels and sort of race after him. So how do we choose a speed? First gear, second gear, fifth gear, how do you think about that?

00:13:16

Well, the way I like to think about it is actually the slow walking it really has the advantage of really being able to be fully present for each step and so it can really help us not only physically to slow down but it is also quite easy for the mind to follow and to also to settle down. And when we go faster, sometimes that is a little bit more of a challenge but it can also be done. And that is what I find very beautiful is that, like you say, like we have many different gears and we can practice arriving, but I see that the practice changes a little bit. So when we go very slowly, we can really feel like each step. And when we go faster, like running, what you just mentioned, that Thay sometimes let us into a mild running meditation is I see, I focus, my focus is a little bit different. So when I do more running or like it goes faster, then I may not be so aware of like my each step, like the beginning of the step, the middle of the step, and the end of the step, but it may be just more like being aware of the flow and being aware of my breathing and like seeing the number of steps increasing as I run but also to just see that actually I can also be very happy when I’m running also happy because I feel very alive and I feel that my body has the capacity to run and that also makes me very happy. So like practice is not just in one way, but we can also see that, for example, nourishing our happiness or be very happy when we run or when we go faster is also a way of practicing happiness or cultivating happiness and being happy, having the capacity to breathe fresh air and to be in touch with nature and to be there. But I see for myself like some practices they work better for slow walking and some practices are more designed for going faster.

00:15:52

Thank you, brother. Brother Phap Huu, a phrase that’s often used in Plum Village is to walk in freedom. And Thay with sometimes say, you know, don’t take another step until you really believe that you can walk in freedom. And Phap Xa has talked about, you now, the walking is not to think about our worries about the past or our worries about the future. But what does it actually mean to walk in freedom?

00:16:19

Freedom here, we have to ask freedom of what? And the freedom of what in a lot of our observation is freedom from running towards the future, or freedom from being carried away into our thinking in the present, or in worries about the past. And so this practice is a challenge. It really is a challenge because as you said, there’s a lot of motion in our body and there’s motion in the world. And it seems like we’re always striving, the collective energy is like striving to fight for the future and to save the future, to protect the future which is all true. And at the same time, but we neglect the present moment. So when we speak about freedom in the practice, it’s like freedom to be fully in the present moment, with every step that we take, with every action that we can accumulate to offer, you know? It’s really a training, I like to use the word training a lot, because like Brother Phap Xa has mentioned, there’s so many ways that we can apply walking meditation, and there’s not one strict way, because we want to make walking seamlessly embedded with meditation, but I would recommend like on days where we feel like very overwhelmed, I would, I would really go down to slow walking meditation, one breath, one step. It’s also the practice, it embodies the three trainings of mindfulness, concentration and insight, because concentration is for me, at least, I feel it’s a very needed practice for our well-being, because we’re so stimulated by everything, and our mind is also a stimulation, our feelings is a stimulation. So we want to ground ourselves with something that is very physical, that is felt. And slow walking meditation, for me, has really made me slow down. Whenever I am in fifth gear I know I need to go down to first gear And I don’t see it as a slowing down, as a bad thing, I see it as an upgrade to the presence, to the quality of freedom. And we practice this like maybe five times a week here. And in the slow walking meditation, is where I really get to feel the beginning of the step to the middle of the step, to the end of the step. And that lift, and you get to see the motion. You’re so in, you’re so invested in the actions that are happening, and Thay, he really tells us that walking can be so relaxing, and it can be very healing. So a lot of the times we are always striving towards doing, so slow walking meditation is an invitation for us to ground ourselves in the being, and so the slow walking. Thay even challenged us and he said, don’t do it in community because we have to flow with the community practice, but if you want to practice alone, you take one step and you say, I have arrived and you’re like, no, I haven’t arrived, you stay there. And you breathe in until you like, you know, you are here. Then you make the next step. And because I have arrive, it’s not a declaration it is a realization. It is, I am here. I am present with every step. So walking meditation has also become a kind of development of a good habit. Sometimes people ask me like, what do I do with a lot of emotions like anger and frustration? I said, well, if that becomes a habit, you create another habit to accompany that habit. So when you’re angry, we have a training for this. When you’re angry, we are committed not to say anything, not to do anything, because the cloud of anger, it can produce more violence or more ill intention with action. So walking meditation has been advised for us, like go walk in nature, like surrender yourself to the environment that can hold you. So walking meditation becomes like this friend, this boundary for us to stay within, to train our awareness and of the sensations, of the feelings, of the thoughts that we are having. And sometimes I really say like, no, you know, my worries walk with me and just to ground yourself in the motion. And in this practice, there’s so many things that are happening at the same time, right? Like you’re slowing down, you’re caring for your emotion, you are mindful of your steps. And then you are being nourished by nature or by the environment. Even if you are in, not nature, you’re in the city, you can still take these steps and still be very grounded in the present moment. And this practice is not to avoid the present moments, but it’s to be even deeper into the present.

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One of the things that we actually have talked about before is that walking meditation is sometimes a better way to deal with your emotions than sitting meditation. Some people are very restless or find it very difficult to have certain responses that when they’re sitting it’s very, very difficult for them to sit, whereas when they’re in motion it becomes easier, they’re sort of in flow, they are able to move their bodies where sitting can sometimes feel a constraint. And you talk about in the book about a time where you were here in Plum Village and someone humiliated you and you talked very un-Zen-like about wanting to punch him. I particularly enjoyed that part of the book. Yes, that’s what we want, some real honesty. And it was at that moment that you really discovered walking meditation as a way of addressing, you know, really strong emotions. So take us back to that moment and help us because there’s so many people who are living this life with all sorts of complications, difficulties and anger arises and the feeling is I want to attack, I want defend myself and sometimes by attacking. So either we withdraw completely or we want to make the other person pay. So it’d be really great for you just to hear what it was like at that moment that you felt, not to go into the story of it, but you felt a humiliation, and you wanted to react with anger, and you chose another path, literally another path. So take us through that and what you learned about yourself.

00:24:19

Yes, it’s interesting. Now that you also mention it, I also find it interesting to think about like walking meditation versus like sitting meditation, because I see for myself, I want to walk when there’s a strong emotion and also sometimes I’ve asked brothers and sisters what they like to do, and I hear most of them saying like they’d like to go walking or they’d like to be out in nature, to be in touch with nature. And so I see it is for very many people, it is exactly like that. And for me at that moment, I remember it was towards the end of a day of mindfulness. And the sisters here, they live in Lower Hamlet, and we, the monks, we live in Upper Hamlet and it’s about three kilometers. And so I remember at that day of like, like practicing walking meditation from Lower Hamlet to Upper Hamlet, so that’s about three kilometers. And I remember the first part, maybe the first one and a half kilometers they were quite difficult, they were quite challenging because I was angry, I was upset. And so what happened for me was like, there was this kind of like video or this kind of like movie in my head that was repeating the same scene over and over again. And then with a different response, like, yeah, like you mentioned, like wanting to punch, but mostly in that movie, it was more like, you know, like coming up with a good reply, you know, or like, but at the same time, I was also very aware that, you know, that that was not helping me. So yeah, the film was going on, but at the same time I was also really trying to arrive in each step and to walk and to continue walking. And at a certain moment and I often think back of that moment, I realized that the stories ended and there was no story anymore and I was not angry anymore and there was just… It was very, very pleasant and it was very very happy because I saw I was no longer a victim of the stories that I was telling myself in my mind. And so there was a lot of liberation and I think that was the first time, like sometimes I think like the stronger the emotion, also the greater the happiness is when that emotion is no longer there. And so for me, I was very upset, I very angry and so the contrast was just so big and I just felt so happy and so liberated. And then suddenly there were like, it was like clear skies. And it gave me a lot of trust, a lot confidence in this practice of walking meditation that it is a really good way without any side effects, you know, not taking drugs or anything, without any sides effects to be able to, yeah, not having to be a victim but actually taking everything into your own hands and that I can do something to end the stories and to really come back to the breathing, to come back to my body and to see that it’s impermanent.

00:28:12

To talk about what it was like to be in motion going through that process. The fact that you were walking and in movement and that helped that process to conclude like that.

00:28:24

I think it would have been very difficult for me to practice sitting meditation at that time because there was just so much energy in me and like the movement was for me also like a way even though I was not going very fast, but it was also a way to put that energy into the walking. So I really felt that it was a way for me to use part of that energy just to walk and not to think much. And sometimes what I like is that what our teacher has sometimes mentioned, like walking meditation is not a practice, it’s just an enjoyment. And it’s also like, don’t think about it too much. Just be happy that you can walk on this beautiful planet Earth. And so for me also like the walking, even though the stories were going on, but at the same time, I was also focusing my attention on walking and to be, moving my body and to focus my attention on just the walking and just doing something that I naturally find enjoyable. So I think that was very, very helpful for me to do walking what I really enjoy doing. And so it took me a little bit of time, maybe about 15 minutes, 20 minutes, but then I saw, wow, and now I completely enjoy the walking and I really can enjoy it because the stories have ended.

00:30:06

Thank you, brother. So Brother Phap Huu, taking that on a bit, so one of the things I love about Buddhism and Plum Village is the idea of aimlessness, that we don’t have to always do things with a clear goal or a purpose. Now, most people walk to get from A to B, and normally they want to get from A to B as quickly as possible, and we really see that in cities where people are sort of racing, almost pushing each other out of the way, sort of getting stressed and so walking is not an enjoyment in itself most of the time, and of course, hiking is different, we’ll come onto that, but in terms of just the sort of normal day-to-day walking, our mind is normally focused on getting somewhere. And one of the things I love about the practice in Plum Village is actually you don’t go anywhere. You just literally go on a walk. And I always remember there was a climate leaders retreat here, and one of their climate leaders, after the first meditation walk, he came back and he said, that was incredible. And I said, why? He said well, I’m normally racing to get from one place to the other and this is the first time I can remember that I’ve just walked for the purpose of walking and that I was able to just really notice nature, just be present on nature, see the leaves rustling in the trees, see the birds in the sky. So tell us about walking meditation in the context of aimlessness. We walk for the sake of walking.

00:31:46

Thank you, Jo, for bringing aimlessness into this conversation, because that’s one of the doors of liberation. Because a lot of even maybe for some of us even practicing meditation, there’s an aim and aim to be something. And one of my favorite book of our teacher is Old Path, White Clouds. And the first chapter is Walk Just to Walk. And it really speaks about it guides us in the fact that most of us were always walking, whether in the home from the living room to the kitchen or from our bus stop to the school, there’s always motion in our life. So it helps us just to recognize that anywhere can be a zendo for us, anywhere can be a path of practice for us. And the practice of Zen masters, I would say, like, wherever they go, I can feel their freedom, and I can feel that they are literally walking and enjoying every step that they take. And because I was fortunate enough in Brother Phap Xa, I was also fortunate enough to walk along our teacher in the monasteries, but also on tours. And he really always embodied this aura, I would say, this aura of just so much freedom wherever he walked. And walking can also be an escape, right? Like exercising, in a way, sometimes is healthy for us but it can also be an escape. So the practice of meditation is not to escape but it’s like to ground yourself into our steps, into the presence, into our breath, into our acceptance of our feelings and emotions. So when we are practicing walking meditation, to walk in that spirit of this is a training and I am literally just learning to come back to my steps, so many of us novices, we would remember like, it felt like we’re retraining to walk like a little baby again. And how much we stumbled, even slowing down. You find yourself losing balance, because we’ve been on this autopilot of just going, just moving. And so walking meditation can actually be quite a challenge, because your intention, your whole intention is to slow down, to be in the present moment. So it’s very interesting to see all of us grow in this practice, like how our steps develop into our way of meditation. And it’s really funny to say that because we all know how to walk and at the same time, we don’t know how walk. Our teacher used to tell us like, you don’t need to tell me how you practice, I can just see the way you walk and I can tell if you are actually practicing. And so whenever, all of us, we would see Thay like roam around the monastery, it was so hilarious because we would all like hit each other’s shoulders like, Thay’s there, Thay’s here, and you see us all change. We suddenly shift our attention to the steps. We suddenly, we suddenly, in a good habit, shift our awareness to slowing down, to being with our breath. And then we can really enter into that stepping into freedom of aimlessness, I am walking just to walk. And because we are not good at training these habits, so in the setting of a monastery or in a retreat, we set time to do walking meditation. And that friend that you spoke about had that privilege of having a leader who would lead the path. And you literally don’t know where you’re going. And it’s a wonderful feeling because there’s a lot of trust, you’re going to trust these monastics that are going to lead us home. Maybe home as in from start point A back to start point A, or just home in the present moment. And our day-to-day like remembrance is like, we have steps that could be of peace. We have steps that could be of arrival. And walking just to walk is very deep, Jo, because… have our ancestors been able to make these steps? You know, our whole lineage into this moment of who we are, maybe the step of freedom is the first step in our whole lineage that gets to experience the peace, the non-running. So it could be a very deep practice. And I remembered when in 2022, after Thay’s passing, his transition, and I had to go to South America and I was in Ecuador, which Thay has never been to Ecuador. And I felt like I can bring Thay to Ecuador because these steps are a transmission from him to me. And now in my own steps that I am making on the soil, the land of Ecuador, he’s present. So this practice carries also this depth of transmission of the three times. Thay would tell us sometimes don’t walk for yourself. Don’t be selfish. Walk for your mother, walk for your father. Walk for you loved ones who don’t have this opportunity. Walk for someone who’s suffering, who won’t come to a meditation retreat, but you can do it for them. You know, walk the Buddha. The Buddha’s not here. He’s one of our spiritual teachers. And Thay said, I’m sure if the airplanes were there back in the day, the Buddha would have ventured beyond India, and so Thay said, sometimes Thay would say, I let the Buddha walk. I don’t have to walk. I let my teacher walk. I don’t have to work. It is this, you’re envisioning these lineages that are taking into the present moment of action, motion, and this is aimlessness, but also non-self that we put into motion.

00:38:36

Thank you, brother. And Brother Phap Xa, just taking that on a bit on the ancestors and beyond just ancestors. But one of the practices I’ve really loved here is not only to walk for someone who’s sick or to walk for your parents, but to walk with them, to actually imagine them with you. And I remember there was one friend who was suffering from long COVID and literally could not walk. And she was suffering terribly. And I just email saying, well, I’m in Plum Village and every day we walk and tomorrow I’m going to take you for a walk. We’re going to walk together, we’re going walk arm in arm together. And she was deeply touched by that, but I really felt that I was walking with her at that moment. And I know in the book you talk about sort of this walking alongside people and walking with ancestors. Is there anything else you want to add to what Phap Huu was saying about how we bring people with us?

00:39:35

Actually, I remember when I decided to become a monk, I remember it was difficult for my parents to accept. And so even though for me, the decision of becoming a monk was very clear, it also hurt me that my parents were not happy with it. And then there was an elder monk at that time and he said, like, actually, you can… You can also walk, you know, for your father, you can walk for your mother. And so like the exercise that he gave me at that time, which I also practiced was like, father, father, I walk for you, I walk for you. So with breathing in, like the awareness of father, father, and the awareness that we are one, and then with the outbreath, I walk for you, I walk for you. And it means also my peace is your peace, and my happiness is your happiness. And that is something that our teacher also has encouraged us very much to walk in this awareness or also to sit in this awareness that we’re not sitting as individuals, like separate, but also to really to see that we are like part of a stream of ancestors and so that is something that I’ve been reminded of many times. And I have actually a calligraphy of my teacher in my room, and that is, well, in Vietnamese, it’s in Vietnamese but it says like father, mother, I am happy. It’s very simple like that. Father, mother, I am happy. And every time I see that, I know it’s the wish also of my parents, beyond the form or exactly what I’m doing is their wish for their child to be happy. And so I think also when we can bring that with our, with us, that awareness when we are walking, when we’re sitting, that when we are happy that we make a great contribution to the people around us, but also to our ancestors.

00:42:06

And also, Phap Xa, that actually this practice is adaptable to any aspect of our life. So actually, we can come up with any phrase. No one’s restricted to a particular phrase that you have to say, I have arrived, I am home. But actually, we can make it up for what suits us at that time. So are there any other phrases, either Phap Huu or Phap Xa, that you sort of often or may use that just help you at a particular moment?

00:42:38

I like to say, I am here, I’m here, because sometimes I’m like, I not here. One practice when I was a young novice was just to identify what I’m stepping on, especially in nature. Like, oh, this is rock, this is soil, this is leaves, this is grass, because my mind becomes so stimulated so easily, so I would just recite very simple things that I would identify that I am seeing or stepping on on the path.

00:43:46

So, I just want to come back to something that was mentioned earlier about, you mentioned, Phap Huu, about silence. So, and coming to you, Phap Xa, because I remember there was once where I was facilitating a conference for environmental leaders, and this was near San Francisco, and I was asked to take them for a walk. And we went for about a half hour walk, and they were just chatting constantly. And at the end, when we got to the half, to a place where we were going to turn around, I formed a circle and I said, okay, so I want each of you to tell me one thing you noticed in nature that you enjoyed on this walk. And there was not a single person who could name anything because they had not been in nature. They were just chatting to each other the whole way. So I said well, why don’t we try something different which was on the way back, let’s just walk in silence and just experience nature, because I think there’s that sense of the interbeing then, that when we experience nature, we’re also letting nature experience us, we are cutting the separation between us and nature. And so I’m really interested in that sense of that silence isn’t about being quiet, although it is about being quiet, but it’s much more than that, it’s about recognition of how life is. And I’m just wondering what, in your experience, what that silence was like.

00:45:19

I’ve led many hiking retreats and sometimes it’s difficult because the habit is so strong to walk and to talk at the same time. And so it’s not always easy and I think it also has to do with, we think that connection that we make with each other or to feel connected, it only takes place when we actually have a conversation, when we talk. And then actually to recognize, you know, if you really are happy to try it out is that actually in the silence, you can also have a very strong connection with each other. Of course, you can have a connection with nature, you have a chance to be connected to nature, but also already to share a silence, it can also bring people together. And there’s this kind of like connection without words. And so that I find very deep. And of course there’s many kind of like hiking clubs where people, you know, they will walk and they will have a conversation with each other. But that’s not the kind of hiking that we offer. We offer a hiking on a different level and there are many traditions. And also for us, like we have sitting meditation in the meditation hall and we’re sitting next to somebody. Nobody thinks of talking to the person next to us, because it is kind of like an unwritten rule or maybe also a written rule, written somewhere like that. We don’t talk, like we’re like meditating and for us also, like when we’re doing walking meditation or we’re, we are calling it hiking meditation, we’re out in nature, it’s very much the same. It’s also a meditation. So we’re also encouraged then just to really to meditate and to not talk to the other person and to really focus on ourselves and on our breathing, on our steps and the contact with nature. And we can also feel connected to each other because we are on a journey together and we’re not talking. And so it’s also something very beautiful, I find. And mostly it takes a little bit of time to get used to it, but after that, I see that everybody really appreciates it.

00:47:57

And brother, what do you think is the discomfort people feel in the silence that they feel then they need to say something, that they need to talk, what’s your experience of that?

00:48:10

I think it has a lot to do with habits, like an expectation that we have for ourselves and also for others. And maybe also it’s not always so easy to be with ourselves. So talking can also be a way of distracting us from unpleasant feelings that may arise in walking, in being in nature, in the silence. And so I think those are important aspects, like we have a kind of discomfort and we want to look for a way to deal with this discomfort. And like being aware of our steps and being aware our breathing and being in touch with nature is one way, but for many of us, it’s not so familiar yet because we have not practiced with it. So we find other ways to do it. And I think one of those ways to it is to talk. Because actually, interestingly, I see that at the beginning of the day, when people have a lot of energy, they’re fresh, it’s not difficult not to talk. Only when they start to get tired, I see it becomes more and more difficult for them not to talk and which is actually counterintuitive because you would conserve energy if you just focus on your breathing and you don’t talk. But it becomes more and more difficult because of this discomfort. There’s more discomfort and somehow to distract ourselves from this discomfort, it becomes more tempting to start a conversation.

00:49:54

And I’m gonna ask you an impossible question because I like asking those. So some things are best not described in words, but can you give it a go as, I loved what you said about when you’re walking in silence, you feel the connection to other people, you feel that sort of communion. Can you sort of in some way describe what that feeling is or what feeling arises when that happens? Because for a lot of people they may not have an experience.

00:50:28

Yeah, that’s a very interesting question.

00:50:31

Oh, good. At least it’s not impossible.

00:50:33

And I never thought of how to put it into words, but I think we have an understanding that we’re doing the same thing. So we are walking and we’re doing the same thing. We follow the same rule of respecting the silence. And we’re also like connected to each other because, yeah, we see that we support each other in this practice. So we’re not talking, it’s not like creating a wall between us but it is a way of supporting one another in touching peace and in touching happiness and in touching nature and being deeply in touch with nature. So I think, for us, the connection is really felt on feeling the support of one another. And also to see that actually we are connected, like sometimes we say we are a sangha body, so we have our own individual body, but we can also see each other as cells in an organism. And so we are connected, and we are cells. And cells are always talking to each other, not by words, of course, but they’re always in communication with one another. And that’s so also like we have a field of energy and we have fields of mindfulness practice that we share with each other which is not to be expressed in words, but there’s a feeling, there’s a sense of support and there’s a sense of peace that we all profit from.

00:52:23

Yeah, that’s not a bad answer, actually.

00:52:26

You did so well.

00:52:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get a gold star. And, brother, I want to come back to speed from another direction. So one of my favorite stories is the story of the hare and the tortoise and that they go on a race and the hare is convinced that it’s going to win and it races off and the tortoise plods along. But of course, the story is that eventually the tortoise wins the race because the hare sort of runs out of energy, goes far too fast and then just gets exhausted. And sort of, you’ve talked in the past a bit about Thich Nhat Hanh was a bit like that, but even though he went very slowly, he seemed to go quicker than everyone else. So I’m really interested in that dynamic of, you know, in walking, that walking slowly people will think they’ll never get somewhere, but paradoxically they can get somewhere quicker. Can you just talk a bit about just that sort of sense of that people worry that if they go slowly that they’re wasting their time?