To begin:
My husband and I will be leaving this week for the Buddhist Pilgrimage to the “Middle Land” of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in India and up into the Pashchimanchal region of Nepal. Our two little girls will be left in Thailand to the attention of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends who have expressed every intention to thoroughly spoil them. I have completed teaching my graduate seminar and all the participants who stuck it out with me have satisfactorily completed my examinations and have all passed.
In addition to the Bodhagaya where Siddhattha Gotama became awake, we are planning trips to Sarnath, Nalanda, Rajgir, Varanasi, Kushinagar, Sravasti, and Lumbini. From the Mahaparinibbana Sutta:
'
This is a once in a lifetime experience of pilgrimage that began around the time of Christ. Many people have made the journey from Ashoka the Great to Tang, Tibetan, and Sri Lankan monastics. Pilgrims in ancient times would sometimes die on the journey. The pilgrimage sites remained neglected and mostly forgotten for the many years following the 12th century Muslim invasion that destroyed almost all of the monasteries, monuments, and Buddhist universities in India. It was not until the 19th century when the sites began the long process of excavation and redevelopment that has proceeded to the present day. I have traveled in India before to Kolkata as a teenager to make merit to help with the homeless and dying in the Christian mission there. As hard as those weeks there were, I learnt to deeply love the people there. This is now an opportunity though to walk in the footsteps of my much beloved Lord Buddha who has been the master of my life since I was born, and I cannot begin to express how excited I am by this blessed opportunity.There are four places, Ananda, that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence. What are the four?
Here the Tathagata was born!' This, Ananda, is a place that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence.
'Here the Tathagata became fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment!' This, Ananda, is a place that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence.
Here the Tathagata set rolling the unexcelled Wheel of the Dhamma!' This, Ananda, is a place that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence.
Here the Tathagata passed away into the state of Nibbana in which no element of clinging remains!' This, Ananda, is a place that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence.
These, Ananda, are the four places that a pious person should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence. And truly there will come to these places, Ananda, pious bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, laymen and laywomen, reflecting: 'Here the Tathagata was born! Here the Tathagata became fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment! Here the Tathagata set rolling the unexcelled Wheel of the Dhamma! Here the Tathagata passed away into the state of Nibbana in which no element of clinging remains!' And whoever, Ananda, should die on such a pilgrimage with his heart established in faith, at the breaking up of the body, after death, will be reborn in a realm of heavenly happiness.
DN 16 (16-22)
In Buddhism, this pilgrimage is not a duty as the Hajj is for Muslims. This is a journey to the sacred places one decides upon as an act of gratitude for the great blessings the Buddha has brought to our lives as well as an expression of our firm devotion and faith to his teachings. In the scriptures, faith or saddha is the professing of confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, and one also applies this faith during the journey to inspire the purification of the mind and heart. I have known many who have found the experience genuinely transformative and some who returned with an entirely different mind. I hopefully will return far more open in my heart and mind.
We will be leaving in couple of days, and I will be gone for a month without access to internet or email. We will be packing very lightly. As the Buddha said, “Just as a bird in flight takes nothing but its wings wherever it goes, so too the wandering pilgrim just takes whatever they have wherever they go and leaves no trace behind...”
My love, blessings, and my Metta to all,
An
XPJS-PkR2Hg
ciYO7mWq3Og