Walk Like a Mountain. Innen Ray Parchelo

Walking Practice # 10: “Sauntering” with Thoreau

       Walking Practice # 11: Walking for Change

       Chapter 10

       RETURNING HOME

       The Narrow Beach

       What Has Been Learned

       Re-entering Our Dwelling – Imagining The Next Crossing

       AFTERWORD

       The Society

       The Scholarly Tome

       Walker’s Supports

       A WALKER’S BIBLIOGRAPHY

      FOREWORD

      In one of my reflections for a past newsletter, I wrote:

      I walked outside to do chores shortly after sunrise today. The sun was shining. The fragrance of smoke from our wood stove punctuated the coolness of the air. Dry leaves crunched under foot. The sound of geese flying south was a pleasant accompaniment to a glorious morning. As I lingered for a few minutes taking it all in, the Native American greeting to the sun and mountains, along with the salutation to the Buddhas in the Ten Directions arose in my mind. I mouthed the words quietly. This simple informal action transformed a mundane enjoyable pause in my routine into a sacred observance. It was an act of true mindfulness, a moment of veneration of the Buddha nature that resides all around us, a joyful expression of spirit. The Buddhist Path is a path of clarity and tranquillity through its many practices. It may satisfy the intellect, as well as guide us morally and ethically.

      All around we are touched by and in touch with sentient beings who reside in the Buddha realms with us. This is important. Buddhism as a whole, and Tendai-shu in particular, communicate with the natural world of trees and grasses, small and large animals, streams and hills, seas and deserts. This is not a form of sentimentalism; it is a recognition that there is no distinction of spirit between the corporeal form we take as humans and the trout negotiating a stream’s eddy. How can we connect with each other as humans and not extend our gaze to our environment?

      Meditation in motion out-of-doors offers fertile ground for myriad contemplations and includes esoteric practice, devotion and veneration of nature. The body, along with the faculties of speech and mind is yet another channel by which to experience and manifest the Dharma. By engaging all three simultaneously, the effect is synergistic, each reinforcing the other. Practitioners often find that one channel seems more beneficial than another, but practising all three simultaneously will yield a balanced development.

      In the pages of Walk Like A Mountain, Innen has provided us with more than encouragement and more than simple instructions or technique. This is a ‘handbook’ as he has intended to share with us, his fellow journeyers. It is like a trail companion that reminds us of the possibility of the trail and, at the same time, the promise of the Buddha-way. Our path is one of re-discovering our True Nature, and that brings us the greatest joy possible. However, while we are called to the Path, we need to remember that each step on the way is itself the path. Because it is all these things and more, do not lose sight that it is equally a path overflowing with simple pleasures. Linger just a tad and soak in the joy of the moment, you will be fulfilling the promise of the Buddhist Path.

      I recommend we each set our feet on our chosen Path, and hope Innen’s notes for the journey will bring us to the trail’s end and the clear and tranquil path that takes us there.

      Rev. Monshin Paul Naamon

       Secretary General

       Tendai-shu North America District

       East Chatham, New York

      INTRODUCTION

      Walkers are also ruminators. Not that we chew grass, our cud is usually some random thought or narrative that floats around like the kicked-up dust from the road. Some years ago, during one of my walks down whatever country road happened to be close to home, I began to ruminate over what seemed like a minor mystery in my understanding of the Buddha-way.

      I recognize that the Buddha-way is not the narrative that floats around many walkers’ minds, but it does mine, mostly because of the personal and professional interests that have occupied me for a long time. Personally, I have studied, practised and taught the Buddha-way within several traditions since I was an older teen, more than forty years ago. Theravada, the two flavours of Zen and most recently Tendai and Pure Land, have been the vehicles carrying me towards the other shore. This has culminated in my ordination as the first Tendai priest in Canada and my continued development of Tendai in Canada, primarily through the Red Maple Sangha I founded in 2002.

      Like a true Gemini, I jump between two parallel and often intersecting paths. In addition to my Dharma-path, I have been a social worker and community developer for thirty-plus years, almost exclusively in the rural communities of Eastern Ontario where I have found my homes and walking trails. Over that time I have watched with delight and some concern as Buddhist practice, especially vipassana-style mindfulness, emerged as an important modality in the securing of mental health. Since the appearance of the earliest treatment model, called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), movement practices like walking have come to occupy a regular, if minor, position in the inventory of mindfulness skills.

      About the cud, my mystery: very simply put, we know the Buddha got up from his seat under the Bodhi tree and stepped into religious history. He walked across North India and established a monastic order that walked with him. His birth story distinguishes him by his three steps. As a mature and troubled adult, when he left his palace he walked into the forest and walked for decades with a group of fellow renunciants. His early symbol was his foot-print (padakan). And on and on. The question that rolled around in my walking thoughts and led to this book has to do with the apparent relegation of walking as practice, as cultural image and as aspect of religious history to a minor role or even to be dismissed as unimportant. When I tried to imagine the Buddha’s time, or that of Jesus or Moses or any other religious leader, when I imagined them walking for days and months as they shared their teaching, it seemed without question that some major teaching and practice would have happened along the way. It seemed without question that this walking experience would have played a key role in the cultivation of contemplative life. And so I wondered why it wasn’t explored in great detail in subsequent literature or teaching.

      Initially, I imagined a magnum opus, a wise and scholarly tome that examined images of foot, walk and path in the most obscure Indian and Chinese texts, that traced the teaching tradition across all schools. That may one day be written. However, in the end, the practical side, the walker, won out. Hence this book, which is not the scholarly tome but a handbook. It takes you on a journey; it shows you how to transform the ordinary act of walking into a beautiful and energized contemplative act.

      I think it was my friend Greg Krech who tells his story of walking a trail in his Vermont neighbourhood. He recalls walking up the trail and grumbling at how rough and untended the trail was. He slipped into blame and resentment at the poor quality of the path. Once at the top, he recognized how collapsed his mind-state had become and approached the descent with a perspective open to gratitude. Walking the same trail he saw all the evidence of hundreds of person-hours which had cleared branches, restored the ground and protected precious plants. In his haste and selfish-mind he had missed all the evidence of other hands.

      Now that I have completed my journey, may I acknowledge the many hands involved in clearing the way for this