Shamash Alidina: A walking meditation to practice beginner’s mind

# What this practice is for Shamash Alidina offers a walking meditation designed to weaken automatic assumptions and strengthen curiosity. The goal is not to erase prior knowledge but to pause and ask whether your habitual view of a place or moment is always accurate. The practice trains you to notice ordinary details through seeing, listening, and bodily awareness.

# How to do the practice

1. 1Find a safe place to walk and keep awareness of surroundings if you use headphones.
2. 2Start standing: feel your feet and posture, take one gentle breath.

1. 1Walk a little slower than usual to create space to notice.
2. 2Bring attention to the sensations of one foot lifting, moving, and touching down, then the next.
3. 3Challenge yourself to find three things you've never noticed before—small, ordinary details like a crack, a leaf shape, a color, or a mark.

1. 1Shift to listening: notice volume, distance, and layers of sound (traffic, birdsong, footsteps, wind).
2. 2When the mind says, "I know this place," note that thought and gently ask, "What else can I notice?"
3. 3Allow playfulness: stop if something piques curiosity and explore it like a child.
4. 4Remember the uniqueness of this walk—same path, new combination of weather, light, sound, and feeling.

1. 1Continue with curiosity, lighter and less certain that you've already seen it all.

# Practical pointers

• Keep the pace only slightly slower than usual so the walk remains natural but more receptive.

• Use pauses between paragraphs if reading the script aloud or practicing with the audio version.

# About the teacher Shamash Alidina has practiced mindfulness since 1998 and has taught mindfulness full-time since 2010. He runs a training organization, writes books including Mindfulness For Dummies and The Mindful Way Through Stress, and leads trainings online. He is based in London.

# Why this is useful

# Try it now Choose a safe route, stand, breathe, and begin. Aim to notice three previously unnoticed things and practice seeing without naming. If impatience or boredom arises, name that state briefly and continue observing. The exercise is short, repeatable, and usable whenever you want to refresh your attention on the familiar.