L'Incompresso

This morning I joined a group of people doing Zen meditation for an hour and fifteen minutes. I came in late, about a half hour into it. But when I walked into the room no one lifted an eyelid toward me. They continued to sit in silence.

I found a seat, exhaled, and quickly let go of the mind chatter. After about fifteen minutes, someone rang a bell and everyone stood to do a walking meditation. I'd done walking meditation once before, but hadn't really gotten anything out of it. It was just slow walking, and I wanted to get where I was going.

This time, it was really slow. I lifted my right foot, moved it forward, placed it on the floor. And then the left. At one point I became unsteady. I had lifted my left foot before my right foot was stable on the ground. I nearly lost balance and could've fallen doing this. You had to be in every step.

The trick was, to be sure both feet were firmly planted on the ground before you lifted the other one, so you had a stable foundation to move from.

It's like speaking. You need to have both feet on the ground and know the next word you mean to say before you say it. Or you risk being off balance, saying all the wrong things, and being misunderstood.