NLAI, or Nasa Labas ang Ili, was a pair of walks I facilitated along a route inside the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in 2023. It was one of several workshops by various artists under Rosa Mirasol Melencio–Quijano’s first solo exhibit entitled “ILI: Mga Kwento ng Lupa, Bayan, at Tahanan” (ILI: Stories of Land, Country, and Home). Ili is an Ilocano word that means village, town, or community.
The first NLAI walk was held on April 20, 2023, around four in the afternoon. I called it Dapit-hapon (sunset). Meanwhile, the second NLAI walk was held on April 27, 2023, at around seven in the morning and was called Bukang-liwayway (Sunrise).
The NLAI walks were seminal in my exploration of walking as a platform for cultivating attention as well as a gathering that allows us to return to ourselves, others, and nature. The following is an account of the first NLAI walk: Dapit-hapon.
People were still walking around the Sining Makiling Gallery when we began sitting down in a circle of chairs. I started the workshop by asking the participants to introduce themselves and describe their favorite walk route. After sharing a few things about myself, I told them about Snake Road—that anfractuous trail I used to visit almost every afternoon back in my hometown in Pangasinan. I told them how I would lie down on its side, staring at the stars as the sky went dark and farmers had gone home—farmers I personally knew. I told them that I felt like I owned that road whenever I was alone there at night. I told them I left my hometown a couple of months after it was cemented, and motorcycle riders, vendors, and teenagers began flocking to it at the same time I did my walks.
I passed the baton to the person on my right and listened as the participants shared stories about their favorite routes. I heard stories about the academic oval at UP Diliman, a neighborhood in Quezon City, Sampaloc Lake in San Pablo City, the beach, Roxas Boulevard along Manila Bay, and a farm in Puerto Princesa City.
After the introductions, I told them that the walk we are performing this afternoon is more about attention than it is about walking. Walking will simply be a tool to train attention. I told them that attention is like a gift we offer to someone. The more we offer it and the higher the quality we offer, the more chance of building a relationship. Love and friendship grow from the mulch of attention.
I then told them that this afternoon’s walk will offer attention to three receivers: kapwa (a Filipino word that literally means I-and-the-Other), pook (Place), and sarili (Self). How will we do it? We would divide the walk into three parts. On the first leg (the walk towards), we would focus on kapwa. On the second leg (the rest), we would focus on pook. Lastly, on the last leg, we would focus on sarili.
The walk would be a practice of being here in the present moment. Instead of using the breath as an anchor for attention, we would use kapwa, pook, and sarili to connect with the present moment. After the introductions, I asked everyone to join me outdoors to start the first leg of the walk.
Nasa Kapwa ang Ili (Home is in I-and-the-Other)
After dividing the group into pairs, pairing strangers with each other, I read a poem entitled “Sabay Tayo” (Let’s Go Together) that I found on the internet by a poet called Inggo. After reading the poem, we started to walk outside the gallery and continued toward Freedom Park, half of which was once a World War II Japanese prisoners’ camp.
Nearly after the walk started, I received my first feedback from one of the participants named Benjie. “Take it slow, Vince. Ka Icktoy is with us.” I looked back at the seventy-five-year-old man who decided to walk with us. Ka Icktoy, or Victor Reyes, was a renowned poet and playwright who fought against Martial Law in the 70s and 80s. During those years, he lived in the United States, where he carried a cross on his back in front of the Philippine embassy in protest of human rights violations by the Marcos dictatorship back in his country. Today, as we walk together, Ka Icktoy is about eighty years old and has gone through several hospitalizations. He is feeling good and even decided to travel to Laguna from Quezon just to walk with us. When I heard he was coming, I suggested that I facilitate a shorter walk for him, but he wasn’t hearing it. He insisted on doing the walk as it is. In consideration, we had to slow down. Being a fast walker, Benjie, a participant who was also a friend, reminded me to slow my pace.
Not too long after the walk started, Marky, another friend, saw us. He was playing volleyball with his friends at Freedom Park as we passed by. He approached us and decided to join the walk. “Why did you leave your friends?” I asked him. “I want to be with you guys,” he said. Later, on the corner of Freedom Park and Pili Drive, Hogar, another familiar face in the community, saw us while on his bike and started chatting with some of the participants. He also decided to join the walk. I, the facilitator, saw all of these things happen and let it be.
Before the walk started, I shared a few reminders. I reminded everyone that discomfort is inherent in any walk and that we would be treating it as part of this experience. I also told them that despite us having a plan, I was open to making changes if the present moment asks so. Marky suddenly joining us is the first change. I thought I would be walking the first leg alone. But there I was doing exactly what the first leg was designed to do: connect with Kapwa.
At the southern edge of the park, we turned left onto Pili Drive, where we walked slowly for a few minutes before entering an interior dirt road near a creek of the Molawin River.
Nasa Pook ang Ili: Home is in Place
Along the dirt road, we passed by houses and shanties, some of which were owned by informal settlers who built them just outside an iron fence built by the university. Walking in the Philippines, whether in urban or suburban spaces like where we were walking today, exposes one to the realities of poverty. I knew my group knew about this, but I told them about the dirt road before the walk to prepare them.
After passing by a few houses, we arrived at an open space in front of a small man-made lake. Since it was a few weeks into taginit (the dry and hot season), the man-made water level was noticeably low. Nevertheless, lotuses still abound and grow liberally over the water.
On the horizon are the mountains of Laguna, those near San Pablo, including Mount Malinao and the mythical Mount Banahaw behind it. From the open space, the nearby Mount Makiling could also be seen in its full grandeur. Nearby hills, like Putho-Tuntungin, and the houses built over them are also visible.
I asked the participants to gather around as I marked the next phase of our walk through a poem by Rofel Brion called “Tahimik.”
Mananahimik ako
nang makapiling kita’t
marinig ang iyong salita
sa hihip ng hangin
tikatik ng ulan,
talilis ng alakdan sa damo,
igkas ng sangang binitiwan ng bunga,
ingit ng bakal sa kumikiskis na bato,
maging sa hapdi ng sikat ng araw
at lamig ng sinag ng buwan,
nang mahiwatigan ko
mabanaag
ang loob mo.
After reading the poem, I told the group that in this space, we would spend about fifteen minutes resting. I asked them to break away from their partners and instead be with the place itself through their senses. I invited them to use the physical space as an anchor to their attention. They could write or take photos if that helps them connect with the place. Otherwise, they can simply rest.
To perform the prompt myself, I moved away from the group. From afar, I saw a few also breaking away from the others, finding their own spots around the lake. Most stayed where we gathered, spreading sheets and lying down to rest. Ka Icktoy began to sleep.
Nasa Sarili ang Ili: Home is in Self
After fifteen minutes, I approached the participants and asked them to return to the group as we began the last leg of our walk—a meditation on the self. It is a two-kilometer return to the gallery using half of Pili Drive, which was closed since the beginning of the pandemic and which has since been dedicated to walkers, joggers, and bikers.
I told the group that we would walk together, but each would do so in silence and away from our partners so we could focus on ourselves. I invited them to use themselves as an anchor for their attention, which included their body. I told them they could try kinhin, which is a way of walking in Zen that involves looking down and counting breaths.
To begin the walk back, I read a translation of an excerpt from one of Henry David Thoreau’s journal entries.
Naglalakad akong mag-isa pauwi sa kakahuyan tulad ng pag-uwi ng isa na nangungulila sa tahanan. Iwinawaksi ko lahat ng kalabisan at tinitignan ko ang mga bagay-bagay sa kung ano talaga sila—maringal at marilag.
I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
We walked in a single file and in silence through a field. We then passed by a hut and some corn crops. A few of us stopped to stare at Mount Makiling and photograph it as the last light slowly disappeared in the sky, and we were left only with its silhouette.
We crossed a small bridge over an artificial canal near the field and started our walk on Pili Drive. In the other lane, vehicles leaving the university rushed by, while our bodies slowed down, keeping up only with our breaths.