This book is a unique resident for your bookshelf or backpack. This is the first book to deal with the many forms of Buddhist and other contemplative walking practices in a comprehensive way. It is the first to address the interests and needs of Buddhists and other spiritually-minded walkers in actually using traditional and more recent Buddhist and Buddhist-friendly foot practices as part of their contemplative journey. Its written with these people in mind. You’re likely one of them if:
• you already have some regular Buddhist practice and may have had some introduction to kinhin walking;
• you have some form of meditation practice, Buddhist or otherwise, and need something to provide some variety between or as an alternative to sitting;
• you are curious about reflective practices, especially Buddhist, but find the prospect of sitting quietly for very long to be a bit daunting;
• you have participated in a pilgrimage or other contemplative walk and want to expand on that experience;
• you regularly enjoy walking and feel the need to give it a more structured reflective dimension;
• you have participated in socially-conscientious or fund-raising walks.
People are drawn to walking for many more reasons. Rather than the reasons above, yours might include walking for fitness and/or weight loss, competitive and race walking, trophy or ‘bucket list’ walking (that is, to collect trails as achievements), and walking for human or animal companionship. There are merits and benefits to each on this second list, however, in this book, we are concerned with the first list and have little to contribute to that second collection of interests.
SCANNING THE TERRAIN
Through all of this, I discovered there are many books about walking. Some call it walking, some call it hiking, the more common North American term, others trekking, which one sees more often in Europe. There are those that locate trails of interest and detail highlights one might pass en route. There are instructional guides which explain types of packs, boots, poles and so on. There are memoirs of “great trails I have done.” There are manuals that extol the health benefits of walking as exercise. There are training guides that prepare one for competitive walking. There are books on walking Tai Chi, walking yoga, warrior walking, Nordic walking and walking chi kung. City, country, forest, mountain, pilgrimage, tourist, on and on.
As mentioned above, this is the first book to address the interests and needs of Buddhists and other spiritually-minded walkers in actually using traditional and more recent Buddhist and Buddhist-friendly foot practices as part of their contemplative journey. Our concern here is understanding and using those traditional and newer Buddhist foot practices within a personal contemplative training regimen.
There has been some debate about a proper term to describe the kind of walking I mean here. Some readers have objected to psycho-spiritual, some to the term spiritual, some are uncomfortable with the term religious. My intention has been to appeal to both the professional and lay psychotherapy reader, especially those using mindfulness methods, and to readers with more of a concern for religious issues, largely but not exclusively Buddhist. The term which has gained greatest resonance with me has come to be contemplation. This seems to encompass multiple styles of meditative practice, therapeutic mindfulness, and a wide inter-faith perspective. For that reason I will stick with contemplation/contemplative when referring to these kinds of walking practices.
In many Buddhist practice environments, walking is often either ignored as a practice mode or treated as an optional practice, more as a relief from sustained sitting practice. Here, we assume a great value for walking and concentrate on the how-to aspect of walking practice. In fact, we will come to understand walking practices as a fully legitimate and comprehensive set of practices. We will come to appreciate their value as a complement to more familiar sitting methods to fulfill the Buddha-way. As Zen Patriarch Yin Kuang explains:
Since sentient beings are of different spiritual capacities and inclinations, many levels of teaching and numerous, methods were devised in order to reach everyone. Traditionally, the sutras speak of 84,000 (i.e. an infinite number depending on the circumstances, the times and the target audience.) All these methods are expedients - different medicines for different individuals with different illnesses at different times - but all are intrinsically perfect and complete. Within each method, the success or failure of an individual’s cultivation depends on the depth of practice and understanding, that is, on his mind.
Pure-Land Zen, ed. Forrest Smith, p. 7
PHASES OF OUR JOURNEY
Parables, stories and metaphors of travel and journey are part of the fabric of our culture. As I write this, the radio music in the background is singing the praises of “the broken road which leads me back to you,” just one example of such stories of life as life on the road. In chapter seven of the Lotus Sutra, which is sometimes called The Apparitional City, we are told of a leader who responds to the distress of those around him by leading them on a journey, promising them the greatest treasure at the conclusion. It is in this chapter that we are introduced to the teaching of skillful means (upaya) whereby a great teacher constructs their teaching according to what is most resonant for those in need. In this case, the leader chooses a journey as his skillful means.
This book is about journeys, and takes the form of a journey. Every journey, no matter the length, purpose or mode of travel is a transition, a rite of passage, a transition ritual. In its simplest form it has three phases: separation or home-leaving; limin or pivot-point; and re-connection/re-collection. Separation or departure is recognizable as our leaving the family-hearth, making a break, however large with patterns and past. Often it is a home-leaving. Most importantly, this separation is purposeful. We are not driven onto the road, we deliberately step onto it with reasons and aspirations unique to ourselves. At some point we reach the limin, we become liminal. This liminality has an ambiguity, as Turner explains: “liminality is not only transition but also potentiality, not only ‘going to be’, but also ‘what may be’.” (Image, Turner, p. 3). Anyone who has walked a labyrinth understands that something shifts at the centre, what was approaching is now leaving, seeking has been satisfied. The ancient Romans used to place the two-headed god, Janus, in their doorways for this same reason. Being on the threshold or limin, Janus looked ahead, down the road, and back into the familiar, literally, the family hearth. The final phase is the re-entry, re-crossing the threshold back into the home we left. It is a re-connection, and yet, because of what we have become on the journey, we recollect how we are different.
Within the journey on which we are embarking are three parallel journeys. The first is the unfolding journey of walking in Buddhist history and practice. We’ll join Shakyamuni, Bodhidharma, Jizo-bosatsu and countless others who unfolded the Dharma step by step. The second journey is our own journey of practicing walking. We explore how we can introduce foot-body-mind practices into the collection of practices which guide our own spiritual lives. We each will have a unique path to walk and that too will fork and meander as our practice-lives evolve. Finally, there is my own journey with walking, a pilgrimage that approaches fifty years. I hope to share how I’ve made my way along this wonderful Dharma-path, how I learned what Thich Nhat Hahn tells us – “peace is every step.”
Walk Like A Mountain is divided into three parts:
Part I: Preparations
• Every journey demands preparation – destinations to name, maps to collect, baggage to secure. In this part, Chapters One to Four, we consider the Buddha-way as a foot path, we imagine where we might go and we anticipate the journey from the perspective of the threshold.
Part II: Journey
• Building on the metaphor of crossing and dwelling, we examine practices that are journey-like in form. In Chapters Five to Eight