Oriana LaChance, Rev. Master

In a recent Sunday morning Zoom gathering of the congregation, I was speaking about walking the spiritual path. I am not comfortable with the idea of a path with a goal reached at the end—what I think of as the “rainbow fallacy”—so what is this walking I am talking about? Dainin Katagiri, founder of Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, tells us that if you wish to realize the truth, all you need to do is “stand up straight and begin to walk.” In legend, Shakyamuni Buddha took seven steps immediately after he was born, lotus flowers springing up in his footsteps. One way to understand this is as an expression of the universal, or universal consciousness, and as recognition that both before and after birth, the Buddha was not separate from this vast emptiness. He was “standing up straight and beginning to walk,” offering his life with each individual step. Years later, when Shakyamuni awakens under the bodhi tree, he underlines this universal awareness saying, “I was, am and will be enlightened, together with the whole of the great earth and all its sentient beings, simultaneously.” Before your individual thoughts, feelings, or perceptions arise, in fact, before you arise, something is already present: the particular and the universal walking together. In this way, we are both unique and universal, both alone and interwoven with all beings.

Great Master Dōgen speaks of this in the Shōbōgenzō fascicle, Mountains and Waters Sutra, saying that if you think that walking just means walking around on two feet, you don’t fully understand walking. Walking is wholehearted participation in coming and going, beginning and ceasing. Walking is mind, body and heart. It is also an expression of transience, an acknowledgment of impermanence. Waters, always in motion, reflect this truth, as do mountains, which rise and fall and flow in their own way.

Dōgen expresses it like this:

The mountains lack none of their proper virtues; hence, they are constantly at rest and constantly walking. We must devote ourselves to a detailed study of this virtue of walking. … Those outside the mountains do not sense this, do not know it. Those without eyes to see the mountains, do not sense, do not know, do not see, do not hear the reason for this. To doubt the walking of the mountains means that one does not yet know one’s own walking. It is not that one does not walk but that one does not yet know, has not made clear, this walking. Those who would know their own walking must also know the walking of the blue mountains.

In his book, The Mountains and Waters Sutra, Shohaku Okumura writes about this: “If we really know our walking, if we know that our whole life is walking, moving, and changing, then we can see the blue mountains’ walking. Dōgen is asking us to clearly see our own selves. Then we can see the world outside of ourselves. Both are walking.”

Continuing with Dōgen:

If walking had ever rested, the Buddhas and ancestors would never have appeared; if walking were limited, the Buddhadharma would never have reached us today. Stepping forward has never ceased; stepping back has never ceased. Stepping forward does not oppose stepping back, nor does stepping back oppose stepping forward. This virtue is called, “the mountain flowing, the flowing mountain.”

Life is walking. Stepping back to Original Mind before our individual thoughts and predilections limit our view of the mountains and waters walking, and our view of our own walking, does not stand against stepping forward. Can walking back and stepping forward be one continuous movement—the Circle of the Way?

For myself, I wish to relate to this Sutra ‘without prejudice,’—that is, to walk with it as the mountains and the waters walk with it; to say, “yes,” to let the words of the Sutra carry me along, like life, like the Buddhadharma.

Recently, I received an email in which the writer describes walking a marathon while reciting Thich Nhat Hanh’s, “Peace is every step. It fills the endless path with joy.” The endless path—the path of Buddhist practice that leads nowhere and brings us back to ‘here.’ ‘Endless,’ not as in, “Will I ever get there?” but as in the joy of walking step-by-step in harmony with the universe that neither begins nor ceases. They go on to describe other walks and write, “The thing about all those experiences was discovering that I was walking step-by-step with others and in a sense with the vastness of the universe. It’s quite humbling, also encouraging.” Our puny self is not so important, and we are encouraged by this encounter of self with self.

They continue:

“A different metaphor, but somehow similar, is feeling I’m out on a vast ocean of grief. At first I felt so alone and adrift. Then there was a moment where it turned into a sea of lotuses. Now I’m still out there, but because of the Sangha and Buddhist practice, …dear family and friends, I now have oars and even sometimes a sail! I don’t know where I’m headed or whether I will ever reach another shore, but somehow it doesn’t matter. Now I see the vast ocean is full of millions upon millions of other boats all out there together.”

Perhaps understanding that reaching the other shore doesn’t matter is reaching the other shore—out here in the boat with oars, a sail, and sometimes even wind, and with trust that you are carried by something greater than your individual efforts. Again, the particular and the universal walking together with the mountains and the waters and all beings.

In The Light that Shines through Infinity, Katagiri says that, “standing up straight under all conditions is right acceptance.” Standing up straight and walking. You can depend on this walking, this deep acceptance of life. It allows you to reside in your thoughts and feelings and to respond to them straightforwardly, with compassion—no drama, no soap opera. The phrase “Meditate inside the life that you have” comes to mind.

In speaking about right acceptance, Katagiri goes on to say:

When wisdom becomes actualized in practice, it is called samadhi—one-pointedness. Samadhi means ‘right acceptance.’ It is to accept something, but not by discriminating from a dualistic point of view. It is to accept your life as a whole and keep walking. Whatever happens, you proceed straightforwardly and just go on with your life. So whatever you think, whatever opinion you have, let it go and let your true self proceed through itself. This is the real practice of spiritual life.

“. . . Accept your life as a whole and keep walking.” This is walking through the Buddha, through the Dharma and the Sangha, walking through the self, walking through the mountains and the waters. No division.