The Magic of Pilgrimage



Steve - Being There

Pilgrimage is a very powerful practice. One’s world is turned upside down. One’s imagination is stretched. Sometimes one sees, experiences, or participates in amazing things.

"A Pilgrimage is a journey into a world of myth. Events which have seemed to be shut away behind the closed doors along time's long corridor become as alive and as fresh as if they had happened yesterday. To the pilgrim, everyday reality and imagination are no longer separate: a shape, a noise, an unexpected meeting, can be charged with significance, becoming a symbol of something 'beyond us, yet ourselves'. One dwells more intensely on how one acts within one's environment, and on the effect of that environment upon oneself. Such intense concentration, coupled with reflection on the life of the Buddha and on the lives of the great sages who followed him, brings about a deep sense of faith which flowers as inspiration. The pilgrim gives himself to the pilgrimage with body, speech, and mind, and the fruits of his devotion manifest as virtue. He comes to feel blessed; in the traditional phrase, he feels, 'richly endowed'." From Suvajra’s 'The Wheel and the Diamond

Outwardly, we could say that pilgrimage is a journey through place to meaning. Be they caves, crags, rivers, woods, trees, lakes, springs, shrines, temples or gardens they are haloed places imbued with meaning, charged with significance, surrounded by aura upon aura.

Inwardly, pilgrimage is a journey through meaning to awareness. It is a pilgrimage of mindful thought and reflection leading to moments –mysterious, precious, healing, liberating, inspiring, ungraspable moments.

Secretly, it is a journey through moments of awareness towards continuity of awareness; pure mind: the eternal empty light.



Anne finds herself at home.