“When you are walking, know that you are walking. When you are sweeping, know that you're sweeping. When you’re worrying, know that you’re worrying. And when you’re breathing, and you must be breathing, know that you are breathing.” -- Ronald Eyre, host of BBC's "The Long Search" (1977), a series on the world’s religions.

Veterans of weeklong summer retreats hosted by Still Mind Zendo of Manhattan know these words. A video clip of the documentary’s demonstration of kinhin walking meditation is shown at the start of each sesshin.

The phrase "and you must be breathing" always hits me, for some reason.

Eyre narrates these words over a clip of a monk demonstrating slow kinhin at the end of the episode, which is available on YouTube: "Footprints of the Buddha," (timestamp 50:54). The “Long Search” series is based on the research of Ninian Smart, who was a well-known professor of religion in Scotland.

Eyre is quoting the teaching of an interview subject, Ven Ananda Maitreya, who was a Buddhist scholar and Theravadan teacher in Sri Lanka.

Most people in the program credits are long gone, except for the one holding the camera, Jon Else.

At the time of this writing, Else is 81 and leads the documentary program at the University of California Berkeley. Else is best known for directing "The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb" (1980). He was honored with a lifetime Emmy in 2025, and sat for an interview here.

Summer sesshin participants at our zendo will long remember his few minutes of filming focused on the slow bare feet of an anonymous forest monk.