Episode 59: Green Mountains Are Always Walking

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2019

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake." This line from Wallace Stevens' "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" captures something of the mysteries of walking. It points to the undeniable yet baffling relationship between walking and thinking, between putting one foot in front of the other and uncovering the secret of the soul and world. In this episode, JF and Phil exchange ideas about the weirdness of this thing most humans did on most days for most of world history. The conversation ranges over a vast territory, with zen monks, novelists, Jesuits and more joining your hosts on what turns out to be a journey to wondrous places. Header image by Beatrice, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES Dogen, The Mountains and Waters Sutra Weird Studies listener Stephanie Quick on the Conspirinormal podcast Weird Studies episode 51, Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' Lionel Snell, SSOTBME Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" Arthur Machen, "The White People" Herman Melville, Moby Dick Vladimir Horowitz, Russian panist Gregory Bateson, cybernetic theorist The myth of the Giant Antaeus Wallce Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life John Cowper Powys, English novelist Will Self, English writer Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” Paul Thomas Anderson (director), Punch Drunk Love Viktor Shklovsky, Russian formalist Patreon blog post on Phil’s dream David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.8	For more episodes, or to support the podcast,
0:23.4	go to weirdstudies.com. Hi, welcome to Weird Studies. I'm Phil Ford. This week we're talking about walking, which I realize does not seem like the most obvious topic for a show called Weird Studies. I mean, what could be more ordinary than walking. But let's not think about walking as we usually do, as a means to an end. A primitive mode of transportation, obsoles by trains, bicycles, cars,
1:13.1	and those annoying goddamn scooters that litter the sidewalks of my town and no doubt yours.
1:19.1	No, think about walking as an experience in itself.
1:23.2	That's when it starts looking a little weird.
1:25.9	You might, for example, start thinking about how, as you walk, the scenery shifts around you.
1:31.3	You're the one that's moving, not the streets and houses, of course.
1:35.3	But is that your actual experience?
1:38.3	The medieval Zen philosopher Ehay Dogan suggests that it isn't.
1:43.3	In the Mountains and Water Sutra, he writes,
1:46.5	Mountains walking is just like human walking. Accordingly, do not doubt mountains walking,
1:52.1	even though it does not look the same as human walking. The Buddha ancestor's words point to walking.
1:58.0	This is fundamental understanding. You should penetrate these words.
2:03.1	If you doubt mountains walking, you do not know your own walking. It is not that you do not walk,
2:09.7	but that you do not know or understand your own walking. Since you do not know your own walking,
2:15.8	you should fully know the Green Mountains walking.
2:19.4	Now, maybe that sounds very mysterious and zen.
2:23.7	But if you want to see if there's anything to what Dogen says, well, take a walk.
2:28.4	Attend to your experience.
2:30.5	I don't know what that experience will be.
	...

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