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Originally Posted by
Pantisocrat 
Walking without any distraction, like MP3s or mobiles, can be meditative in some ways. When I walk, I always get dogs barking at me, but not one, not even a bitch, has mustered the urge to chase me down. I think the reason is that they don't know where I go, for when I walk I tend to wander, so there's a slight probability I may bark back. There's fear in uncertainty and animals know this.
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The wild buffalo cannot butt its horns against him, The tiger cannot fasten its claws in him[..]. And for what reason? Because in him there is no room for death.
http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/...TTK.html#Kap50
...Yes, animals especially dogs if not trained to be psychos or ill (rabies etc.) can really pick up on various things: once, in my walks, I thought about a person who was walking with his dog: 'what a disgusting prole' whereupon the animal aggressively and rightly, I might add, barked at me while his owner was completely oblivious to my sentiments. One should not think like that about anyone or at least guard ones feelings and not let them take control. I call above Taoist exercise 'to cloud ones qi'; in my understanding it comprises entering into a state of expectant no-mind (mushin) where you are ready for anything but without fearing or anticipating any possible outcome or attaching any feeling to it. Thereby animals -and also people, btw- will tend to overlook you. Hope this is not too 'esoteric'...(also crazy addict-avantgarde-author William Burroughs had devised an interesting walking-exercise that makes you pick out fringe-types like and makes yourself 'invisible' in the eyes of most people (I've tried it and it actually works) :
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In his self-appointed role as an agent provocateur Burroughs has been fascinated with masks and disguises: Clem and Jody dressed in Stetsons and red suspenders, "Happy Cloak" addicts wearing Venusian skins, Audrey Carsons in a "Charro costume", Kim Carsons selecting a disguise to return to the New World, the drug-pusher as a priest, and, of course, the hipster in a three-piece banker's suit. Disguises are used to conceal one's identity, presence, and behavior; they allow the wearer to travel stealthily and perform his operations unseen. Ultimately, however, the best disguise is none at all; Burroughs describes it as the "Walk Exercise":
Basically it consists in taking a walk with the continuity and preceptions you encounter. The original version of this exercise was taught me by an old Mafia Don in Columbus, Ohio: seeing everyone in the street before he sees you. [...] Generally speaking, if you see other people before they see you, the won't see you. I have even managed to get past a whole block of guides and shoeshine boys in Tangier this way, thus earning my Moroccan monicker: "El Hombre Invisible".
Burroughs has conducted himself in precisely the fashion of a shy and retiring surveillance agent, quielty gathering the facts, penetrating the most hardened defenses of cultural "Control", and reporting the details back from the front lines. Like the Invisible Man in the H.G. Wells novel, his invisibility allows him to approach and withdraw without anyone noticing. Like the "spy" described by Jasper Johns in 1965, he is an artist who "must be ready to move", must be aware of his entrances and exits... must remember and must remember himself and his remembering... The spy designs himself to be overlooked."
Artists and writers may function as spies of sorts, but if their reports make enough of an impact, exert enough of an influence, or change the course of affairs, they become much more akin to an agent runner who directs other spies. And, according to the fictional spy George Smiley, "it is the business of agent runners to turn themselves into legends."
http://www.translatum.gr/forum/index...#ixzz1MhOc3ied
Have fun walking and 'seeing a world in a grain of sand'!
