“Go on a praise walk,” she said. And then she shared photoshopped images of earth altars. A praise walk?! My heart liked the idea, it was my mind that resisted. My mind is capable of so much pain and separation. It could start to criticize the monetization of Earth Art by some white dude. It could roll my eyes at her childish way of teaching. It could decide that this wasn’t really a practice of liberation, so what was the point.

But I was intrigued by the resistance. A praise walk isn’t so different then my daily walking practice, and yet…something was pushing against it. Someone was saying no. And I realized it was more than the arguments of my mind, the source of it was closer to a vulnerability, then I heard the voice… I do not sing to the trees. 

So although I feel connected to the earth and sky, breath and body when I aimlessly wander through the streets of Portland on my daily walks, I do tend to walk through the streets as a wanderer, a museum goer, a tourist. She was inviting me into another level of participation. One that I sensed was delicious BUT…

What is praise? 

A mixture of love, attention, ecstasy, humility, openness!? An invitation to see the sacred in everything, in everyone!? A movement of the heart towards prayer? Perhaps, closer still its an invitation to experience yourself as the great mystery unfurling–together with all beings.

Just a week prior to receiving this praise walk invitation, I was reflecting and teaching on the Zen koan Chang Sha’s Wandering in the Mountains from the Blue Cliff Record. The koan goes: 

One day Chang Sha went wandering in the mountains. Upon returning, when she got to the gate, the head monk asked, “Where did you come from, teacher?”

Sha said: “From wandering in the mountains.”

The head monk asked, “where did you go?”

Sha said, “First I went pursuing the fragrant grasses; then I returned following the falling flowers.”

The head monk said, “How very much like the sense of springtime.”

Sha said; “It even surpasses the autumn dew dropping on the lotuses”

There is always a risk when working with a koan, that you see what you want to see. As I worked on it, I was appreciating Springtime. I left my house at different times each day and followed the daffodils, the smells of magnolia, the breeze, the big tree, the sun-lit path. I didn’t think about where I was going or where I would end up. Sometimes my path was zig-zaggy, sometimes straight up, other times a bit circular. I was learning my neighborhood based on the feeling each day, the attractors as they say in Expressive Arts Therapy. 

It was an interesting exploration. To enter right-brain activity. To walk letting the heart lead, or the feet, or the whole body. Is attraction a form of vow? What is it we move towards? What is the source of our longings?!

Sometimes it can feel like the Buddhist teachings point to having no attractions or aversions. Having no preference, would you turn left or right? Having no preference, do you want coffee or tea? Taken to its extreme, having no preference becomes a preference–another place of fixity, another rule. True no preference is allowing for the changing attractors to pick us up. To be in relationship with our lives.

What moves you? 

What is it like to let yourself follow the activity of the heart, a deeper attention or knowing, then the critical either/or rule-bound mind? To walk or let the body follow what it loves. As Mary Oliver says, “to let the soft animal of your body, love what it loves.”

And what does it love? How would you move through the world if you let what the body loves be the guiding force in your movements? To allow pleasure walking, pleasure activism? Perhaps there is someone there who knows what to do? Perhaps this one is enacting the Bodhisattva vow?

I call this facet of the koan, aimless wandering. 

The next side, to follow the fallen blossoms–is another opening into the koan. An opening into what I am calling praise.

What is praise? Do you know how to do it? When did you last let yourself praise, what was it that you praised?!

I realize that I don’t have much of a relationship to praise. Perhaps I did as a child. Now the muscle feels atrophied. Was Chang Sha praising Spring as she wandered in the mountains, following the fallen blossoms? Really?

I am intrigued to try praise because it feels like an invitation into a part of the heart that I am almost ready to awaken!

Perhaps a new way of seeing and experiencing this life, lies within the hands of praise.

I go outside, instead of letting my aesthetic senses wander like a tourist through the urban forest of Portland, I become an artist, a creator, a praiser. I imagine speaking with the daffodils, I get closer, I smell them. My world is yellow. I notice the bugs in the soil, I feel how the breeze blows at this height. I notice a fallen flower and borrow it for my altar. I continue following the fallen flowers. Some I re-scatter, some I smell, some I bring back for my altar. There are so many fallen flowers on the sidewalks of Portland in Spring. 

Each tree and bush helps me appreciate its position relative to the sun, its geographical place in the city. I witness song birds, praising so naturally. As I listen, watch and collect–I return home with abundance. Here I build an altar to praise the whole urban forest, my mandala feels like an offering to both earth and sky. I imagine who may see this from above: birds, planes, human, alien, souls, my ancestors. Perhaps this is an offering to all of them. To those in conflicts across the world. To those just learning how to live in praise.

I am still not sure what praise is. This feels like a wonderful place to be. Uncertainty leaves space for new discoveries.