My journey to become a pilgrim.

The village have prepared for the winter well. Currently, there are no major farming to produce crops and most of the outdoors works are kept at minimal amount. The village is in silent peace. Sometimes, I think of the last few months of hailstorm, Naga illness and hunted medicine factory. At one point, I even wondered if all the local deities are also taking a time off intervene with the villagers during the winter because all the event happened in the last few months was created by the deities. Nevertheless, our villagers regularly hold community meetings and practice rituals to pray the deities and the spirits.

During the time I was building the medicine factory with my group, there was another group who went to cave expedition. They have found some texts, which contain information about a journey/pilgrimage to several sacred places. Those were travelogue written by someone who, I am assuming, left the text in the cave to be found. I am especially interested in the topic of pilgrimage. Although I should look after the medicine factory in order to produce sufficient amount of medicine for preventative reasons, I couldn’t resist myself to read the travelogue. I borrowed couple of the travelogue texts from the cave expedition group and began to read. The reason why I am particularly interested in the pilgrimage travelogue is that I consider myself currently being on a pilgrimage. To recall my memories, I was a war-refugee young boy who lost his family, country as well as his meanings for life and the world. When I became an adult, the first thing I did for myself was to go on a journey to seek meanings around the world. This is the starting point of my pilgrimage and as a result, I am currently living in a cave near the village with many kind people.

Going on a pilgrimage alone could be lonely. However, it gave me some great time to think for myself. During those abundant times, I began to think about my journey/pilgrimage from the foundation of its concepts. Finally, I came up with some final thoughts about pilgrimage. The primary purposes for going on a pilgrimage can be categorized in three different motives (Tatjana, Sarah, 2013). The first is a religious and spiritual motive that often derives from a religious purpose of vertical self-transcendence[1]. Generally speaking, it is to bring oneself close to God spiritually or to attain spiritual powers and divine feeling. The second one is an athletic and cultural motive that comes from self-actualization. Technically, it is to challenge and recognize oneself from the pilgrimage and exploration. For instance, the group in our village who went on a cave expedition could be described with this motive (or the first motive). Lastly, it is the clarification motive that comes from the presence of a crisis of meaning. It is developed from struggling with finding an answer to a question about life and the world (Tatjana, Sarah, 2013). These three possible motives encourage people to go on pilgrimages whether it is for religious or non-religious purposes. I started my journey from the last motive. In the process of becoming more knowledgeable and experienced about Buddhism and its spirituality, my journey became a pilgrimage. I began to seek my answers and meanings through sutras and the teaching of the Lama. Once I began to understand and interpret the world through Buddhism, every place I visit became sacred to me. For this reason, I still consider myself being on a pilgrimage.

As much as there are similar characteristics, there are certainly huge distinction between a journey and a pilgrimage. Fundamentally, both voyage are approaching with different perspectives. A journey could be looking for entertainments, certain experience or satisfaction for human desire. Whereas, a pilgrimage is pursuing religious value, spiritual attainment or meanings, in which human constructs his or her mind and philosophy. To put it simply, I can compare with a computer. A journey allows the tourist (user) to explore all the programs or to play game that installed in the computer. However, a pilgrimage enables the pilgrim (user) to search around and upgrade the software of the computer. Ever since I left home and became a pilgrim of my life journey, I have been learning and developing meanings that could possibly upgrade my life. In so doing, now my life has less of Dukkha, suffering. If I haven’t left for my pilgrimage, I would be living in suffering from ignorance.

I am preparing for another pilgrimage. For this time, I am going to take the vow of silence, what is known as “Mauna” in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. It is simply practicing silence. However, this simple practice could help me attaining what I want from the pilgrimage. During the pilgrimage, while environmental silence is conducive to contemplation, one’s (pilgrims’) internal silence is important to open one’s own soul and prepare to perceive religious meanings. Especially in Buddhism, a great importance of silence in religious life can be expressed by Buddha’s words, “The complete silencing is joy”. In addition, scholars and Buddhists suggest the historical story of Buddha for emphasizing the practice of silence. To illustrate, Buddha, who grew up in wealthy family, gave up everything after realizing the suffering of the people and the world. Buddha began to meditate through the practice of silence and stillness until he realized perfect awakening and experienced nirvana.

Silencing is the core attitude for understanding and attaining new meanings. Therefore, silence is not a non-activity practice that results from the absence of sound; it is an active process and discipline that helps the pilgrims to focus on their inner thoughts and the origin of the mind. The Buddhist ascetics attain inner peace and spiritual force through practicing silence in order to achieve the ultimate purpose of Buddhism: mastering course of thoughts. This process connects the dots between silence and meditation to enlightenment. In other words, the function of silencing is that it changes a person to look from the world to look inward for self-discovery (Dana, 2013; McMahan, 2008) and enable to interconnect with others and avoid self-centered thoughts and behaviors. This self-discovery, attained from silence, satisfies both religious motive of self-transcendence and clarification motive caused from crisis of meaning.

As I prepare for this new departure, I read many instructions and information about Sutra. One particular sutra that I was interested in was called, Prajnapuramita Sutra. It is also known as the perfection of wisdom. This sutra emphasizes on the concept of emptiness and suggests that, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness.” At first, I was confused about this concept of emptiness. Perhaps I still am. However, I interpreted it with the practice of silence. The silence has both the form and emptiness. It is a form and it is representing the emptiness. I could be wrong and the Prajnapuramita Sutra could be suggesting something else. However, as I continue my pilgrimage and practice my silence, I will find the answer and the peace that will lead to my enlightenment.

[1] “Understanding Personalism” by W. Norris Clarke explains Vertical self-transcendence: putting off our self-centered consciousness to open up the Great Center and its transforming power, then a profound reversal in the movement of self-development takes place: it now flows primarily from above downwards, transforming us from above

Reference

Fennell, Dana. 2012. “Explorations of silence in the religious rituals of Buddhists and Quakers” in Religion. Volume 42, Issue 4, 549–574, DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2012.704157. University of Southern Mississippi. MS. USA.

Schnell, Tatjana & Pali, Sarah. 2013. “Pilgrimage today: the meaning-making potential of ritual” Pp. 887–902 in Mental Health, Religion & Culture. Volume 16, Issue #9, DOI:10.1080/13674676.2013.766499. Fachklinik Allgaeu, Psychosomatic Medicine. Pfronten. Germany.