Jain Spirit 2004 06 No 19

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 38

36 LIFESTYLE
GYMNASIUM OF THE
CHRISTOPHER ORLET REFLECTS ON THE SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF WALKING, WHICH HAS BEEN IMPORTANT TO JAINS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS
f there is one idea intellectuals can agree upon, it is that walking often serves as a catalyst to creative
contemplation and thought. It is a belief as dated as the dust that powders the Acropolis, and no less fine. Followers of the Greek Aristotle were known as 'peripatetics' because they passed their days strolling and mindwrestling through the groves of the Academe. The Romans' equally high opinion of walking was summed up pithily in the Latin proverb: "It is solved by walking." For Bhagwan Mahavir, Jainism's twenty-fourth Tirthankara, walking was both a meditative technique and central to his ascetic life. For Jain monks and nuns today, walking is an integral part of the religious vocation. They cover hundreds of miles on foot, and receive from this experience intellectual stimulus and spiritual nourishment. In this sense, Jainism perhaps comes closer than any other to being a 'religion of walking! In the West, nearly every early philosopher or poet worth his salt has been a keen walker. Erasmus recommended a little walk before supper and "after supper do the same." Thomas Hobbes had an inkwell built into his walking stick to jot down his brainstorms more easily during his rambles. Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed he could only meditate when walking: "When I stop, I cease to think," he said. "My mind only works with my legs." Soren Kierkegaard believed he'd walked himself into his best thoughts. In his brief life Henry David Thoreau walked an estimated 250,000 miles, or ten times the circumference of earth. "I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits," wrote Thoreau, "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 worldly engagements." Thoreau's landlord and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson characterised walking as 'gymnastics for the mind! In order that he might remain one of the fittest, Charles Darwin planted a 1.5 acre strip of land with hazel, birch, privet and dogwood, and ordered a wide gravel path built around the edge. Called Sand-walk, this became Darwin's 'thinking path' where he roamed every morning and afternoon with his white fox terrier. And of Bertrand Russell, his long-time friend Miles Malleson has written: "Every morning Bertie would go for an hour's walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction."
automobile-centric design has reduced the number of sidewalks and pedestrianfriendly spaces to a bare minimum (particularly in the American west). All of the benefits of walking: contemplation, social intercourse or exercise have been willingly exchanged for the dubious advantages of speed and convenience, although the automobile alone cannot be blamed for the maddening acceleration of everyday life. The modern condition is one of hurry, a perpetual rush hour that leaves little time for meditation. No wonder then that in her history of walking, Rebecca Solnit mused that "modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness," which seems to be the antithesis of Wittgenstein's observation that in the race of philosophy, the prize goes to the slowest. There seems no scientific basis to link the disparate acts of walking and thinking, though that didn't stop Mark Twain from speculating that "walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active." Others have concluded that walking's two-point rhythm clears the mind for creative study and reflection. While the intellectual advantages of walking remain open, the health benefits are beyond doubt, though you would never know it by the deserted American streets. Here, where the average citizen walks a measly 350 yards a day, it is not surprising that half the population is diagnosed as obese or overweight. Despite our obscene girth, I have sat through planning commission meetings and listened to developers complain that it would be a waste of money to lay down sidewalks since no one walks anyway. No one thought to mention
Not surprisingly, the romantic poets were walkers extraordinaire. William Wordsworth traipsed fourteen or so miles a day through the Lake District, with Coleridge and Shelley not far behind. According to biographer Leslie Stephen, "The (English) literary movement at the end of the 18th century was...due in great part, if not mainly, to the renewed practice of walking."
Armed with such insights, one must wonder whether the recent decline in walking hasn't led to a corresponding decline in great thinkers. Walking, as both a mode of transportation and a recreational activity, began to fall off noticeably with the rise of the automobile, and took a major nosedive in the 1950s. Fifty plus years of
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