“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.

[An interesting tangent: Most people in the program credits are long gone, but the person holding the camera is credited as Jon Else.

That happens be to the name of a documentary filmmaker known for directing "The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb" (1980), and I reached out to him at Berkeley, where at 81 he is director of the documentary film program, mistakenly believing this was his work.

His reply: “I wish I could claim those elegantly photographed feet, but I can't. Believe it or not, the BBC cinematographer named in the credits is not me, Jon Else, but my English friend John Else. Really, this is not a joke. We have agreed to take credit for each other's work, but your specific question would stretch my documentary ethics.”