I have often wanted to go on a great voyage. Maybe it is the sense of adventure of every young kampong boy or maybe it was jelled by all the wonderful stories of adventures that I read or maybe it was a mixture of both.
The real adventures were the campings and hitch-hikings with the furthest being the trails around Auckland.
Although age (and aging) has dulled this passion somewhat, I am beginning to fantasize about another type of voyage. This time it is going to be a great pilgrimage.
The only trouble with that is that I have not identified which kind of pilgrimage or what type or the form it is going to take. One of the ideas I was toying about is a pilgrimage on foot (for what is a pilgrimage if it is by easy motorized transport?). Well, I have to recognize the practicalities and realities of a real foot pilgrimage. In that, maybe it may be making use of a minimum of motorized transport but it will still be a
test of personal vigour and devotion.
There were many journeys made which in most ways may be called pilgrimages. This would include visits to the graves of holy saints in Java, the Three Stupas in Nepal, the Holy Buddha places in India and Tibet but other than the first journeys to Bodhgaya, NamoBuddha and Boudha, the others somehow misses a certain flavour.
Most pilgrimages take on a religious flavor but it need not necessarily be so.
I would like combine this pilgrimage with an inner journey as well. How it is going to be again remains a fantasy but deep within I send out energies that one day within this lifetime it shall come to pass.
This write does look like a rambling and ranting of which it is but perchance, an idea can form and concrete action taken. Any suggestions…?
The real adventures were the campings and hitch-hikings with the furthest being the trails around Auckland.
Although age (and aging) has dulled this passion somewhat, I am beginning to fantasize about another type of voyage. This time it is going to be a great pilgrimage.
The only trouble with that is that I have not identified which kind of pilgrimage or what type or the form it is going to take. One of the ideas I was toying about is a pilgrimage on foot (for what is a pilgrimage if it is by easy motorized transport?). Well, I have to recognize the practicalities and realities of a real foot pilgrimage. In that, maybe it may be making use of a minimum of motorized transport but it will still be a
test of personal vigour and devotion.There were many journeys made which in most ways may be called pilgrimages. This would include visits to the graves of holy saints in Java, the Three Stupas in Nepal, the Holy Buddha places in India and Tibet but other than the first journeys to Bodhgaya, NamoBuddha and Boudha, the others somehow misses a certain flavour.
Most pilgrimages take on a religious flavor but it need not necessarily be so.
I would like combine this pilgrimage with an inner journey as well. How it is going to be again remains a fantasy but deep within I send out energies that one day within this lifetime it shall come to pass.
This write does look like a rambling and ranting of which it is but perchance, an idea can form and concrete action taken. Any suggestions…?
2 comments:
concretise on your ramblings and rantings and you would have one great pilgrimage accomplished. pilgrimages need not be by foot. more importantly is its destination and the objective in going. if u are going to take 1 month to mount kailash vs 7 days motorised, you can spend the balance of the days at kailash circumambulating or doing prostrations. what think you on that
motorised transport? I supposed it would be duping myself to think it ca be avoided completely. I remember the monks of the Wat (crocodile wat, was it?) near Bangkok where the monks stick to the traditional caveman way of walking. There are a lot of impracticalities with that and I do agree we had to move on with the times.
Mt Kailash has the factors of being an extremely harsh pilgrimage but somehow there has to be good reason for being there.I find strolling about and spendiong time around the wheat fields near Bodhgaya extremely stimulating as my first glimpse of them arouses many emotions. The same land where the Buddha's foot tread on his quest.
I would like this pilgrimage to be an inner journey as well so it will combine intense meditation and devotion to the practise of guru yoga as well. Where I wonder will this sacred place be?
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