This was not a great week for me to do a “walking” practice. My husband and I went sailing on our boat for five days – there’s not much room on a 28 foot boat to walk anywhere, even before you have also to deal with the motion of the sea! However, I have tried the practice several times since I returned, some for 40-45 minutes and once for a shorter period.
This has always been a favourite practice for me, whether as a TSK practice, or in its form as a Kum Nye, and one we do regularly within the Turiya Foundation. Despite this, I very often find that my mind wanders widely as I perform the practice and I have great difficulty maintaining the attention fully on the movements as I make them. This does seem to be one practice which, as Tarthang Tulku describes it, “does itself”. The body seems to know what it is doing even when the mind refuses to participate as I feel I want it to. And yet, as the experiencer, I observe both. The interesting thing I find is that, when I sit after the practice, the feeling within is of great centredness and calm, almost as though the practice is operating on me in spite of the non-cooperation of my mind. It is as though, within the body and feelings, there is a higher self operating far beyond the chattering “little mind’. I was particularly aware of this action during the practising this week – there almost seemed to be two “me’s” operating at the same time, of which the mental activity was by far the less significant – and then beyond that seems to be the “me” that was “the witness”.
 I should also add that, like Peter, I had difficulty in the allocated reading in understanding the “cone analogy”, and would be please for some further illumination of this.
 Gaynor