Download the 38-minute recording to your portable media player. Go to a park you know well, where you can hike for an hour without getting lost. Then listen to the meditation and follow the instructions while hiking and enjoying the beauty of nature.

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Hiking in Nature Meditation Script Intro

We provide this script as reference material for students, and as a helpful aid for other meditation teachers who would like to use this meditation with their students.

If you are considering using this meditation script to lead others in meditation, we encourage you to have a bare minimum level of experience and competency in meditation. This minimum level of competency includes one or more years of daily meditation practice, completing one or more 10-day long meditation retreats, maintaining an ongoing meditation practice, and the ability to be very calm, focused, and mindful while leading the meditation.

Hiking in Nature Meditation Script

Intermediate Level • 38 min

Helpful Instructions for This Meditation

Greetings. This is Freeman from the Boundless Love Project. Use this guided walking meditation while hiking in nature. If possible, hike in a park where you can walk for about an hour. Choose a park that you know well enough that you won’t have to think too much about where you are going, and where you are unable to get lost.

If safe to do so, do this meditation several times by yourself until you are confident with the technique. Once you get the hang of it, then you can bring your dog along, or invite one or more friends to join you for a silent, mindful walk.

Make your safety and well-being a priority during this walking meditation. Be aware of your surroundings and do what you need to do to be safe and walk without injuring yourself. If a situation arises that needs your attention, ignore my instructions and skillfully deal with the immediate situation. 

After you listen to the guided meditation, if you have any questions about how to do this meditation, please direct them to me through our website, BoundlessLoveProject.org. Thank you.

If you are not already outside and ready to hike, pause this recording now until you are ready. Otherwise, let’s begin.

We start by setting loving intentions for this meditation. You can either mindfully stand in place or mindfully walk during the initial chanting. Here we go!

Ring Bell

We do this practice out of love and compassion for all beings and all life everywhere, including our own.

May we know the joy of living skillfully for the benefit and welfare of all beings and all life everywhere.

May all beings and all life everywhere be loving, peaceful, compassionate, and joyful.

Keep your eyes open for the duration of this meditation. Walk at an easy, comfortable pace that allows you to breath comfortably through your nose. Continue to walk for the duration of this meditation, but be flexible enough to stop walking when that makes more sense.

Body Awareness

As you walk, calmly put most of your awareness into the sensations you feel in the body: the touch of your clothes on the skin; the warmth of the sun; the coolness and pressure of the breeze. Gently notice any and all sensations you feel in the body.

Whenever you have difficulty feeling sensations, focus your awareness on your feet and legs. Peacefully feel the pressure that your feet feel as they connect with the earth, and notice any sensations felt as your feet lift and your legs move through the air.

Lovingly aware of the sensations you feel in the body, notice where there is tension or stress. Invite these area to relax and soften. Throughout this walk, you want to keep your body relaxed, clam, and soft. Whenever you notice tension or stress in the body, invite that area to relax and soften.

Gently keep most of your attention on the sensations you feel in the feet and legs. Try to walk as gracefully and effortlessly as possible.

Calmly try walking as silently as possible.

When most of us walk, we are often lost in thought and unaware of how our walking impacts the joints, bones, and muscles of the body. As you place awareness on the sensations of your feet and legs, you may find that walking feels jarring, jerky, or uncomfortable. This is to be expected.

As you tune into how walking affects your body, slow your pace and experiment with different gaits, strides, and foot strikes. Investigate how these different ways of walking feel to your body. Through such experimentation, refine how you walk to make it more smooth, graceful, effortless, and silent.

Throughout this meditation, and in daily life, aim to walk in a  smooth, effortless, graceful, and silent manner.

Throughout this meditation, and in daily life, try to keep some of your awareness on the sensations you feel in the body.

Throughout this meditation, and in daily life, we are trying to stay present, to experience life directly through our senses and not through the mental distortions of thoughts, concepts, stories, and ideas.

To this end, whenever thoughts arise, compassionately notice them arising, gently label them “thinking,” and then return most of your awareness to the sensations you feel in the body.

Grounding your awareness in the sensations you feel helps you stay present and prevents you from becoming lost in any arising thoughts. Be mindful of thoughts, but don’t get entangled by them. Keep your awareness in your senses.

Sight Awareness

Keeping some of your awareness on the sensations of the body, gently be aware of everything you see.

Calmly try to have a soft gaze that is not focused on anything. This soft gaze allows you to see your whole field of vision all at once.

Calmly use this soft, relaxed gaze to see your whole visual field.

Just as you did with sounds, simply let seeing be seeing. Add nothing to what you see and take nothing away from what you see.

You may notice a tendency of the mind to want to identify, interpret, or judge the sights you see. If such thoughts arise, compassionately label them, “thinking,” and then return your awareness to what you feel in the body and the sights that you see.

While looking forward with a soft gaze, and mindful of where you are walking, gently notice what you can see in your peripheral vision.

As you walk with this relaxed gaze, you may notice how certain things you see attract your interest, and how you will want to move your eyes towards them and focus your eyes on them. There is nothing inherently unskillful with such behavior. However, in an effort to understand how our mind works, and how best to relate to our mind skillfully, we will try an experiment.

Walking with a relaxed gaze, when something catches your eye, experience what it is like to ignore it, and continue walking with eyes forward and a relaxed gaze. Does the mind resist? Does the mind create stories around the experience? Does agitation arise?

Gently notice how the mind responds, as well as how those thoughts and habit patterns feel in the body and mind. What are the feeling tones of these thoughts and habit patterns? Are they pleasant or unpleasant? Compassionately notice whatever arises.

Body Awareness

Let go of this experiment and calmly rest most of your awareness in the sensations of your feet and legs again. Is your walking gait still as smooth, effortless, graceful, and silent as possible? Gently and lovingly make any needed adjustments.

Peacefully scan your awareness through the rest of your body. Gently notice if there is any pain, tension, or stress anywhere in the body? If so, lovingly invite those areas to be as calm and relaxed as possible. Make any needed adjustments in how you are moving to allow your whole body to feel as calm and peaceful as possible.

Awareness of Sounds

Calmly keeping some of your awareness on the sensations of the body, also notice whatever sounds you hear.

Gently let sounds be sounds. In other words, don’t add anything to the sounds. Don’t judge the sound or the source of the sound. Don’t make a story up about the sound or the source of the sound. Simply let the sounds be sounds. Be aware of sounds with peace and equanimity.

What is the loudest sound you hear?

What is the faintest sound you hear?

What is the furthest sound you hear?

Peacefully experience the sounds directly.

You may notice a tendency of the mind to want to identify, interpret, or judge the sounds or those responsible for the sounds you hear. When such thoughts arise compassionately label them, “thinking,” and then return your awareness to what you feel in the body and the sounds that you hear.

Body Awareness

Calmly rest most of your awareness in the sensations of your feet and legs again. Is your walk as smooth, effortless, graceful, and silent as possible? Gently and lovingly make any needed adjustments.

Notice any parts of the body that are tense and invite them to relax, soften, and be calm.

Gently notice all the sounds you hear.

Calmly notice all you see.

Effortlessly notice whether you are using a focused or relaxed gaze.

Smell Awareness

Keeping some awareness in your body, notice what if anything you can smell. Can you smell the freshness of the air, or maybe the exhaust of passing cars? Can you smell the fragrance of a flower or the corps of a road-killed animal?

If you do not have smells readily available, try smelling different things: tree bark, leaves, or needles; flowers; dead grass; dirt; rotting logs; or a port-a-potty.

Gently let smells be smells.

Patiently notice the mind’s tendency to want to identify, interpret, compare, or judge the smells you smell. If such thoughts arise, compassionately label them, “thinking,” and then return your awareness to what you feel in the body and the smells that you smell.

Smell like a dog. To a dog, there are no “good” or “bad” smells; smells are simply information. Smell the smells directly, free of thoughts, stories, and concepts.

Body Awareness

Calmly rest most of your awareness in the sensations of your feet and legs again. Is your walk as smooth, effortless, graceful, and silent as possible? Gently and lovingly make any needed adjustments.

Notice any parts of the body that are tense and invite them to relax, soften, and be calm.

Gently notice all the sounds you hear.

Calmly notice all you see.

Effortlessly notice whether you are using a focused or relaxed gaze.

Patiently smell whatever you smell.

Bare Awareness Meditation Instructions

You have now learned how to work with each sense as well as with your own thoughts. Now we put all that you have learned together and do a walking bare awareness or open awareness meditation.

During bare awareness meditations you keep your awareness anchored in the present moment and simply track whatever your awareness is knowing.

In bare awareness meditation, it does not matter what awareness is knowing. Awareness could be knowing internal objects such as thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, feeling tones, intentions, or habit patterns. Awareness could be knowing external objects of sight, taste, smell, sound, or touch. Just be mindful, or notice, whatever is being known.

Sometimes it is helpful to track what is being known with a simple phrase like this: "Hearing is being known," "Sensation is being known," "Thinking is being known." You can do this with words, or without them. Play and experiment with this strategy to see if it helps and supports your effort to maintain the continuity of mindful awareness.

Gently notice that your awareness seems to constantly move from object to object. It may alert you to a sensation in the knee or back, then the sight of a colorful flower, then the sound of a dog barking, then a smell of tree blossoms, and so on. Allow the awareness to move as it wishes and simply be mindful of what awareness is knowing.

Gently, and with ease, be aware of what is being known, what is arising and passing away in the present moment. Set all other efforts aside for now. You don't have to direct your attention towards the breath, bodily sensations, or anything other than recognizing what your awareness is knowing here and now.

When thoughts arise, notice them with great kindness. Do not engage with the thoughts, nor push them away. Compassionately and mindfully allow the thoughts to be. Notice how they arise out of nothing and, if left alone, return to nothing.

Let go of all need to control the mind or the body. Allow whatever arises to arise. The task at hand is to simply connect and sustain present-moment awareness, and to do so with as much ease and effortlessness as possible.

Engage With Your Environment

As you do walking bare awareness meditation, you can also compassionately engage with your environment. Offer energetic love, or silent blessings to all beings you see. A silently thought, “be happy,” or “be peaceful” will suffice.

If you see trash and are moved to pick it up, do so mindfully. Pay attention to your intention behind the act. Are you acting out of a sense of duty, obligation, guilt, or anger, or acting out of love and compassion?

If someone engages with you, respond lovingly and skillfully. If someone asks you for the time, mindfully respond appropriately. Try to stay calm, peaceful, and kind as you interact with them. Be mindful of your thoughts, emotions, and reactions. Offer them a silent blessing when you part ways.

Mindfully enjoy the beauty, wonder, and miracle of nature. For example, if you see a hedgehog sunning herself in a tree, feel free to stop and place most of your awareness in seeing, hearing, and experiencing her.

Gently notice any delight that arises from curiosity and inquisitiveness. Calmly notice any sense of joy or wonder that arises.

Offer the hedgehog some energetic love from your heart, or silently wish her peace and happiness.  Gently notice any loving feelings that arise when you offer her your love.

Interact with all objects using a similarly loving, mindful, and curious manner. These objects may be cloud formations, bird songs, the smell of flowers, the sensations of the body, the sound of wind rustling through the leaves, the wildlife you see, trees, rocks, lakes, rivers, people, and all other forms.

As you do this, gently notice when joy arises and when it does not. Lovingly investigate how your mind relates differently when joy is present and when it is not.

Learn from Nature

As you mindfully and lovingly interact with various objects, be open to learning from the wisdom of nature.

Kindly use your senses to experience the clouds, the trees, the flowers, rivers, lakes, birds, and other wildlife.

Peacefully notice the ease and effortlessness with which these life forms go about their business.

Gently notice how wildlife and natural life forms live in the present moment. Effortlessly notice how none of them carry a heavy burden of the past, nor do they live in fear and anxiety about the future.

Calmly notice the ease and simplicity with which they relate to adversity, disease, destruction, and death.

Meditation Summary and Send Off

The instructions for this meditation will soon end. Continue your walking meditation for as long as you wish.

Let me summarize the instructions for you. Rest your awareness in the present moment and silently track whatever your awareness is aware of: be it a sight, sound, smell, sensation, or a thought, emotion, mood, intention, or habit pattern.

Peacefully be aware of thoughts as thoughts, but don’t get caught up in their stories. Be the watcher or observer of all of these arising experiences.

Whenever you become lost in thought, lovingly note “thinking,” and gently return your awareness to your senses of sight, sound, smell, and bodily sensations.

Whatever wisdom and skillfulness invite you do as you walk, feel free to do.

May you continue to walk mindfully, and may it bring you much wisdom, joy, health, and peace.

Gently place some of your awareness on your heart area as we cultivate generosity, appreciation, and love by sharing the merits of our practice with all beings and all life.

We share any merits gained from this practice with all beings and all life everywhere.

May all beings and all life everywhere be free from suffering and misery.

May all beings and all life everywhere abide in a deep and lasting peace.

May all beings and all life everywhere know the highest forms of happiness and be at ease.

May all beings and all life everywhere know their deepest essence to be: joy, peace, compassion, and unconditional, boundless love. 

May all beings and all life everywhere be liberated, fully liberated, permanently liberated.

Ring Bell