Walk Like a Mountain. Innen Ray Parchelo

will not detail here, nor encourage this practices for most practitioners. Kaihogyo requires a substantial support-team, that is the involvement of many other monks, and, at certain stages of the practice, a whole lay community, to enable the completion of a super-human and life-threatening effort. It is not our purpose to facilitate such practices.

      Kokorodo can be seen as a conflation and scaling back of both pilgrimage and kaihogyo. Not everyone can dedicate years or resources to daily marathon walking, or weeks to following a pilgrimage route. The kokorodo is an abbreviated version of these practices, where individual or groups of practitioners can share the endless road. It can be a taste of kaihogyo/pilgrimage experience that fulfills some of the same purposes. It removes the practitioner from the daily routine, even if that is a routine of a stationary retreat, and moves them into that symbolic/cosmic realm of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The ordinary events of a 20 mile walk become transformed into an expedition into Dharma realms and heavens where century-old trees become encounters with sage-kings and Bodhisattvas; passages through cemeteries become confrontations with the intersection of life and death.

      Unlike kaihogyo, the route may be familiar and less associated with great Dharma legends. It does not demand the rigour and repetition of kaihogyo, nor does it demand the extended commitment of pilgrimage. But like a pilgrimage, the practice may be a similar separation from daily routines and relationships.

      Part III: In-Between Spaces

      The metaphors of walking as journey, as crossing have been steadily with us to this point. Here we display a second powerful metaphor, that of walking in in-between spaces. Borrowing from another modern writer, novelist China Miéville, and his novel, The City and The City, we learn how walking can expose for us new dimensions in-between our day-to-day lives and spiritual realms which they parallel or intersect.

       Chapter 9: Journey 4 – New Walking

      As we see the landmarks that promise home, we begin to reflect on all the walks we’ve taken, their forms and benefits. Walking now enters a new realm – the symbolic. We envision and map out future walks into that realm. We expand our perspective and make connections previously unmade with other walkers. With the early Christian seekers we enter one of many labyrinth courses. Recalling the author whose words and walking passion opened our journey, we ‘saunter’ with Henry Thoreau along his beloved Marlborough Road, to where it intersects with the roads of our world. Finally, we find new meaning and enthusiasm for the walks which have been chosen by our present Dharma family to transform our world.

       Walking Practice 8: Walking a Symbolic Landscape

      The preceding practices all demand some amount of physical exertion and take place over a real, natural landscapes. The practices of this chapter take us into the realm of largely symbolic and less physical travels. Mandala and Pure Land visioning have deep roots within Dharma practice. Labyrinth practice is largely foreign to Buddhist experience. It is included here because, as a foot practice, it offers a great deal to Dharma practice, and because it is becoming increasingly familiar to Western practitioners.

       Walking the Stations

      Another version of a symbolic walk, in fact, a kind of symbolic/mini-pilgrimage is the structure of the Stations of the Cross. We’ll pass up and down the church aisles to experience the possibilities of this important Christian walk.

       Mandala and Pure Land

      Mandala are symbolic patterns, sacred landscapes which describe realms, personages and relationships which invite us into another level of experience where we can participate in processes and adventures beyond the confines of usual time and space. Such experiences can supercede our ordinary body-bound experience and lead us to new understandings of the activities of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. We will examine several noteworthy mandalas and their associated practices.

      Pure Land recitation and visualization refers to meditative expeditions wherein the practitioner enters into a trans-physical landscape, one created through the meditative experience, and explores the otherwise inaccessible landscape of the Pure or Western Land of Amida Buddha. In these travels, we follow the practitioner who creates/enjoys a visit to an idealized world of sublime perfection, one intended to inspire and structure one’s human realm practice. We consider how we can walk to such a land ‘in this very life’.

       Walking Practice 9: Labyrinth Walking

      Labyrinths appeared in Mediaeval Europe, and possibly earlier, introducing Christian and pre-Christian symbolism into a highly structured walking practice. As Lauren Artress, the woman who single-handedly restored knowledge of and interest in the labyrinth, notes:

      The labyrinth is like teaching a fish to swim. It is easy and natural for most people to enter into a different realm of consciousness.

      The Sacred Path Companion, Artress, p. 25

      Labyrinths are fixed-pattern walks, typically circular, which lead the walker through a complex series of back and forth circles which are designed to interrupt usual-mind thinking. One cannot predict the movement through a labyrinth, but one always has the confidence of completion. Labyrinths are not mazes. They require no solving, only walking. While they have little historical relation to Dharma practice, they have become familiar enough to Western practitioners that there may be value in learning to use them for Dharma practice. We follow our own footsteps through different shapes with different intentions, perhaps to find a way to blend this practice with our own.

       Walking Practice 10: Sauntering with Henry

      Thoreau has inspired countless writers, naturalists, meditators and environmentalists. During the middle of the 19^th century, he re-located from a bustling commercial town in the North East of the US, into a small cabin not far, but far enough, from the town so that he felt part of a natural landscape. His reflections on his life, on nature, on civilization and on walking helped shape 20^th century values and thought. In his book/essay, Walking, which first appeared in 1862, he begins:

      I have met but one or two persons in the course of my life who understand the art of Walking, that is taking walks, who had a genius for ‘sauntering’… I think I can not preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least, and it is commonly more than that, sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

      Walking, Thoreau, p. 1-4

      There is a distinctly ‘spiritual’ tone to Thoreau’s work and so, as contemplative sojourners ourselves, it will be instructive for us to walk some way with him.

       Walking Practice 11: Walking for Change

      Many of the various waves of Buddhadharma arising in the West have tended to replicate Eastern practices. Contemporary Western Buddhists have carried on most of the traditional walking practices in some form. With the maturing of Buddhist thought and practice, teachers of all traditions found it critical to re-form walking to meet the needs, issues and familiar context of modern Western society.

      From the worker’s marches of the early 20^th century, through the protests of the 60’s-80’s and into the 21^st century, walking has found a place in the repertoire of social change advocates. Buddhists, East and West, have lead and joined marches for many causes, most often with peace and environmental issue focus. One radical and imaginative new form for walking is interpreted in Elias Amidon’s Mall Mindfulness. He explains:

      [I had decided to invite my students…] to try something new – to contrast the grounded wisdom achieved through walking mindfully in non-human made nature with the lessons revealed through walking mindfully in that temple of human-made nature, the shopping mall.

      Mall Mindfulness, in Dharma Rain, p. 232

      No less participants in this disjointed modern world, we can bring the historic adaptability and creativity of Dharma practitioners the world over to our engagement in the process of bettering our planet