Kinhin is walking meditation, practiced in Zen between periods of seated meditation (zazen). You walk slowly and deliberately in a line with the group, coordinating each small step with the breath, present with the simple act of walking. It is the same practice as zazen, carried into motion.

How do you practice kinhin?

Stand upright with your hands held softly at the chest, one hand lightly wrapped in the other. On each out-breath you take a slow half-step forward, moving as a group around the room. The pace is unhurried and quiet. At Greenville Zen Center, kinhin comes between the two periods of zazen, and newcomers are shown exactly what to do.

Walking meditation

What is kinhin?

Kinhin is walking meditation. Between the still periods of seated zazen, we rise together and walk slowly around the room, one quiet half-step at a time. It is the same practice as sitting, simply carried into motion.

The word

Kinhin joins two ideas: walking, and the thread that runs through a teaching. In practice it means a walking meditation done in a line, in silence, as a natural companion to zazen. Where zazen is stillness, kinhin is stillness in movement. Neither is a break from the other. They are two shapes of the same attention.

How kinhin is practiced

You stand upright, spine tall and easy, and hold your hands softly at the chest, one hand lightly wrapped by the other. Then, on each slow out-breath, you take a small half-step forward, the group moving together around the room like a single slow current. There is nowhere to arrive and no pace to keep but the breath. When the bell calls us back, we return to our cushions and sit again.

For the seated practice that kinhin accompanies, see what zazen is and our guide to sitting.

Why we walk

Kinhin gives the legs a gentle release between long sits, but that is the smallest part of it. Its real gift is to carry the quality of zazen off the cushion and into the plainest thing a body does, which is take a step. In time, the line between formal practice and ordinary life grows thin. The care you bring to a single slow step is the same care you can bring to washing a dish, or crossing a room, or living a day.

Try walking meditation in Greenville

Greenville Zen Center practices kinhin as part of every Sunday morning sitting, at 52 Cleveland Street in Greenville, SC. A short orientation at 8:00 a.m. teaches newcomers the sitting and the walking both, before zazen begins at 8:15. Every sitting is free. Come plan your first visit, or simply arrive.

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