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we make our awareness bigger than our body, it would be even quicker. Our mind will give order quickly and calmly. If we contemplate without the sense of “self”, with an awareness of whether there is or there is no “us”, and experience how it emerges and ceases. Then, this will be very useful. But, in here, do we need to do that? We do not have to be so fast. Moving slowly is okay. If we move too quickly, it may seem strange.
Actually, young male practitioners ask me—Arjan, can we practice in a quick manner? Yes. But, we need to be fast with an awareness, which will lead to calmness. If we are fast without awareness, then things would be chaotic. In this place, we walk in a calm and composed manner. Furthermore, when we walk slowly, it is called: “Practicing to restrain the body”. By restraining our body, we reduce our conscious phenomena to be as little as possible. This is to allow our awareness to contemplate the major phenomena, the fewer the major phenomena, the easier our awareness can contemplate. For example, when we do walking meditation, why do we need to grasp our hands together? Because, if we swing our arms, how many phenomena are there? There would be left foot, right foot, left arm, right arm—all moving around. But, when we grasp our hands together, the phenomena are reduced to left-right, left-right. Then, there are also the phenomena of lifting the foot, moving the foot forward, stepping the foot down—even these are already plenty.