The Double Dorje: Looking at Modern Vajrayana Buddhism.
Pilgrimage. And did those feet...
Wed, 02 Oct 2024
How does pilgrimage fit into the Buddhist way of doing things? Plus the Guru Rinpoche mantra sung to a tune you might not have expected. Words or phrases you might want to look up: Walsingham Hajj Kumbh Mela Lumbini Bodh Gaya Sarnath Kuśinagara Vajrayana Dorje Sempa (Vajrasattva) Kailash Jokhang Guru Rinpoche #Buddhism #Vajrayana #Tibet #DoubleDorje #pilgrimage #mantra #meditation #nyingma #kagyu Chöd - a vast stream of Buddhist practice! Here is a taste. Chöd Chödpa - (images of) Jamgön Kongtrül Treasury of Knowledge Rimé Sakya Kadampa Kagyu (Marpa and Shangpa) Nyingma Kalachakra Machig Labdrön - Machik’s Complete Explanation Phadampa Sangye Dakini Damaru Karma Kagyu Dudjom Tersar Yeshe Dorje (Rainmaker) #Buddhism #Vajrayana #Tibet #DoubleDorje #chöd #mantra #meditation #nyingma #kagyu In the early weeks of this podcast I included an approximate script, not particularly well edited, on a blog page. For the episode dropped on 4 September entitled “Bad gurus, tosh gurus and good gurus” and for episodes due to be dropped from 18 September onwards, starting with “Jyekundo / Yushu: travelling in East Tibet” there is a transcript file which is much closer to the actual words used. Note that other distribution platforms do not necessarily pass this on, and if you want to read it you may need to listen on podbean. YouTube has been making its own transcript, which was an unholy mess. I think I have now deleted all of these "auto-generated" scripts, but it will not be possible to retrospectively add properly edited transcripts to episodes prior to September 2024.
Hello, hello and hello. You are truly welcome to this Double Droger podcast. I'm Alex Wilding and in this episode I want to share some thoughts about pilgrimages and how they fit into the Buddhist way of doing things. I will sing the Guru Rinpoche mantra to a tune that you might not expect.
And finally, I will tell you whether the chair practitioner who appeared in the previous episode was scared out of her wits or whether she triumphantly rose above fear. Firstly, though, may I take a moment to encourage you to take a moment of yours to like this episode, subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends in whatever way is appropriate for the channel you're listening on
At the time of first publishing, the podcast is hosted on Podbean, but it's very likely that you're listening somewhere else. If you do want to see the brief comments, but they don't appear in your channel, you will find them on Podbean. So, pilgrimage. It's something that's known and treasured by many, many religious traditions around the world. Catholic Christians...
may make a pilgrimage to Rome to see the Pope giving blessings in the square of St. Peter's, or to Lourdes in France in the hope of healing. Less often they may make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, poor suffering Palestine, and perhaps more often to more local sites, such as Croke Patrick in Ireland. That's the one that serious pilgrims climb barefoot.
Way back decades ago, I knew a group of people who happened to be Roman Catholics. Some had been born into that religion and some were new converts to a circle, mostly consisting of students, who had gathered around an apparently somewhat charismatic priest.
One of the things that bonded them together was taking part in a pilgrimage in the east of England in which they took turns carrying a heavy wooden crucifix. It's possible that it's the one that finishes at Walsingham, which you can Google, although to be quite honest, I can't remember that for a fact. I wasn't properly a Buddhist then, but I certainly wasn't leaning towards Catholicism.
Anyway, good or bad, it was clearly an experience they valued very much, and it did, as I said, bond them tightly together. If you dig around, you'll find quite a number of pilgrimage sites in Europe, many of them not well known to the wider public. While we're about it, my guess is that the Muslim Hajj is probably the best known pilgrimage in the whole world.
Every Muslim is supposed to make that pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime if they possibly can. And I read recently that the number of pilgrims each year passes two million. The Hindus too have at least one massive, massive pilgrimage, the Kumbh Mela, that takes place approximately once in every 12 years.
The last one was in 2019, and apparently the estimate of the total number of participants is an astonishing 200 million. The authorities estimate that the busiest day involved 50 million people. Thank goodness, not all at one single site, but it's still a mind-boggling number. So it is very clear that pilgrimage is something that resonates strongly in the religious part of the human mind.
Buddhism doesn't feature any such gargantuan pilgrimages, and maybe that might be partly due to the idea that performing some religious act, such as a pilgrimage, will bring you salvation. Or, on the other hand, the other side of the coin,
that failure to perform some religious act will send you down to the bad, bad realms below, is not an idea that sits as well within Buddhist thought as it does within theistic thought. All the same, while going on pilgrimage might not be seen as essential, it can even so be helpful, it can be inspiring and even healthy, and a number of sites are well known as pilgrimage destinations.
A very short list of some of the most important would include Lumbini in Nepal, where the Buddha of our age was born, Bodhgaya in Bihar, where he reached enlightenment, Sarnath in Uttar Pradesh, where he gave his first sermon, and Kushinagara, where he died. These four, and a few others, would be recognised by Buddhists of every stripe.
but there are famous destinations that are perhaps more closely associated with particular schools. One most notable one that comes to mind is the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka, or the mountains of Wutai Shan in China, and the temples of Kyoto in Japan.
I won't go on, as you'll find plenty of good information if you search the net and look at sites such as Buddhist pilgrimage sites on Wikipedia. But myself, as a student of Tibetan styles of Buddhism, I do really have to mention at least the Patala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and Mount Kailash and its nearby lakes.
Mount Kailash is looked on as a sacred site, not only by Buddhists and burnt Tibetans, but also by Hindus who see it as an abode of Shiva, and by the Jains.
Having been on an all too brief visit to the Potala years ago, a pilgrimage to Kailash is one that I would still love to do, although I don't really see it happening, either when I peer into the tea leaves or when I look up into the stars and constellations.
As if the hardships of these pilgrimages were not already enough, you'll even see those who prostrate their way around Kailash, measuring their length, as it is said. and around special sites such as the Jokhang. Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, as I said, is most famous for the Patala Palace, which is of course extremely photogenic. You must have seen pictures.
But the Jokhang in the centre of town comes higher up on the scale of sacredness. So how can we think about this? When Buddhism puts so much emphasis on the state of our mind and our motivation, how can we tie that in with something as obviously external as a pilgrimage?
I think quite a lot of the answer lies in a principle that's quite central to the Vajrayana approach, and that is the power of enactment. We often speak of the Vajrayana rather than the Tantrayana largely because of the way the word Tantra has been hijacked and distorted in the West by cheap jack would-be gurus and exploiters.
Another term, which is in fact quite synonymous with this, and widely used in Tibetan writings, is the Mantrayana, or the secret mantra vehicle. It is, after all, well known that practitioners of this style of Buddhism spend large amounts of time reciting mantras.
And when they do this, the mantra is not just some sort of soothing spiritual sound that we repeat in the same way as we might put on a CD of Buddhist chant, together with a candle and some incense and go, oh, peaceful. Rather, the mantra is a statement of the deity concerned. It almost is the deity concerned. It embodies the deity and often does not contains the deity's name.
It's an enactment of the deity's speech. In the same way, we might consider the famous preliminaries. When a practitioner does, over a period of months or years, a basic set of preliminaries, they actually do throw themselves down on the ground in a full-length prostration 100,000 times, usually while reciting a version of the refuge prayer.
the practitioner will not just meditatively think about feeling remorse for the harmful things they have undoubtedly done, and wishing to do better and make amends, they actually do recite the hundred-syllable mantra of Dorje Sempa, also called Bhajrasattva in his Sanskrit name, reciting it out loud, even though perhaps quietly, 100,000 times.
they actually do hold a circular disc representing the golden ground of this world system, placing piles of rice on it representing continents and the wealth of that world system, offering all this to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and doing it 100,000 times, and so on. When reciting some sadhana or liturgy,
A feature that comes up regularly is the offering of washing and drinking water, flowers, incense, lights, perfume, food and music. And while this is done with a mantra for each, it's accompanied at the same time with a set of hand gestures that represent each of these things, rather than simply sitting there and thinking. Once again, the power of enactment is at work.
The statement of truth out loud once more is a verbal enactment used again and again in Vajrayana ritual. An expression in Sanskrit stating the purity and emptiness of all things is often made immediately before starting to visualize a deity. While at the end of such a practice, it's quite possible that a standard formula stating the essence of Buddhism is recited.
In the translation that I use, that I've had for so long I can't remember where I got it from, it goes like this. Namo, all phenomena arise from a cause, and the cause was taught by the Buddha, along with the cessation of that cause. This has been taught by the Buddha. Refrain from the slightest evil, accumulate virtue, and tame your own mind. This is the teaching of the Buddha.
It's held that actually making this statement out loud is itself a thing of power. With that in mind, it is, I think, easy to see that undertaking a journey, particularly a difficult one that's going to involve hardship, yet one in which camaraderie and friendship may also have opportunities to grow, is a very positive action.
Being away from the ordinary habits that grow up in the course of normal life cleaning our teeth, scrolling the internet, checking the weather forecast and so on.
And while being away from those, at the same time slowing up and opening our minds in inspiring settings where the memories and, many would say, the blessings of former great practitioners are strong, can lead to a deep-seated shift, for the better, let it be said, in our minds and, hopefully, our lives. That being said, We must not ignore the elephant in the room here.
Travel, flying in particular, and the burning of fossil fuels that goes with it are things that we have to start doing less of. I don't know what the solution is or where the balance should be found, but it is something that we have to start weighing in the scales. Because of the short history of Buddhism in the West, We don't have very many obvious nearby pilgrimage sites. We need more.
Has our practice developed to the stage where we can identify suitable places, practice in them, and turn them into pilgrimage sites through the power of our own practice? That's another question to which I don't have an answer, but I think it is worth asking.
Maybe at least we can, through our practice, bring a few special sites into the Buddhist mandala, imbuing them with some magic and practicing there. Who knows, perhaps someday they will become pilgrimage sites.
Having indulged in some of these lovely images, I guess I should finish by putting on my Solomon's series hat and return to the emphasis that Buddhism puts on motivation, on the heart and mind, and on the way we look at our surroundings and our companions in this life.
The true pilgrimage is indeed, and I think you will agree, the journey through refuge, bodhicitta, yidam practice, guru yoga, and to the guru or Buddha in the heart. If we have pure perception, wherever we are is already a true pilgrimage site. And this isn't just my fancy idea. This is part of the tradition. But that kind of very high view does, of course, slip away only too easily.
And that means that enacting an outer pilgrimage, whether it's to a famous site that gives us bragging rights, or just to an awesome site nearer to our home where we more easily come into touch with the deeper parts of our mind, this can be of huge value. And now for something less serious. You may well not have known this, but the tune that I learnt at school for the hymn To Be a Pilgrim
can be used to sing the Guru Rinpoche mantra. I say this partly by way of warning, as you may have heard me croaking in one or two other episodes, so you may want to skip the next 20 seconds or so.
OM AH HUNG BEN ZHA GURU Pema Siddhi Hon Om Ah Hum Ben Zaguru Pema Siddhi Hon Om Ah Hum Ben Zaguru Pema Siddhi Hon
And so we float off to the copper-coloured mountain. And just before I go, perhaps you guessed what happened to that cheer practitioner in the cemetery I told you about in the previous episode. Of course, she did not miss a drumbeat and her melody did not waver. But she looked up the light of the low moon gleaming in her eyes.
A smile spread across her face, and she gave a gentle tilt of the head as if to say welcome. Your party all felt a bit foolish. Dave, one of your friends, even offered three prostrations, and you all backed out of the graveyard with folded hands. I'm guessing that she did all right for offerings over the next few days.
Okay, so with the tune of the pilgrim hymn still perhaps ringing in your ears, I will say goodbye for this episode. Don't forget to like it, subscribe, share with your friends, or whatever is appropriate for your podcast channel, and don't forget the power of enactment. Bye.