The Essence of Walking
A recent article in the New Yorker entitled “Why Walking Helps Us Think” provided the inspiration that “since the time of the peripatetic Greek philosophers, many other writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking and writing.” In a subsequent piece in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote, “How vain it is to sit and write when you have not stood up to live!”
During my year in Kyoto I discovered the mindful movement and meditatiive connection to my own inspiration through hours of endless and aimless walking while intimately discovering the oldest ancient city of Japan. Kyoto is precisedly laid out in great detail as a walkable city, whereby most residents make their way through their daily routines on foot, bike or train. During my year living in Kyoto, I walked over 600 miles through rain, heat or snow. Walking was one of the essential rituals I discovered as one form of my daily meditation practice. It became as routine as eating or brushing my teeth.
It was during my long afternoon walks among the Japanese Maple trees, Zen gardens and narrow streets that poems would effortlessly come forth. During my many strolls along the Kamogawa River inspired ideas would come from the higher realms. Often I would have to stop somewhere so that I could sit on a bench and write in my notebook everything that was coming through me and onto the page.
There is no coincidence that many great thinkers and writers throughout the ages have made long walks part of their daily routines. In one of my all-time favorite books, Daily Routines, great thinkers and creators from Albert Einstein to Thoreau to Carl Jung all prioritized the daily walk as a practice in which many of their most inspired ideas came forth.
Wherever you find yourself, amidst whatever life circumstances, the mindful practice of a daily walk incorporates movement and meditation and opens your mind to a voice that cannot be heard unless we break free for a window in nature every day.
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.
Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountain in Boquete, Panama.
Zen and Ink Journals is a simple offering of words in the hope of inspiring others to a simpler, more mindful way of life in these chaotic times. I invite you join me each month on the journey for a glimpse of the larger world, reflections on living more simply and quietly amidst the chaos of our modern world.
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Zen and Ink was born over a decade ago out of my own personal journey to find peace and tranquility amidst the ever-increasing chaos of our modern world. In the last ten years, the pace of our modern world has only accelerated and we have moved further out of sync with nature and the rhythm of our souls. Zen and Ink offers a quiet space for anyone along their journey seeking more balance and Zen in their daily lives.
Zen and Ink provides an oasis for those who are drawn to a slower and simpler way of life; to provide a portal for awakening, tools and resources that many will find useful in their own quest to find the Zen which is already there and always within and around each of us.
