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Pilgrimage and Sacred Landscapes - Lessons from Tibet

By Anne Z. Parker

The Dalai Lama has said that the greatest pilgrim doesn’t need to go anywhere, but for most of us it is important to enact in the outer world that which we wish to accomplish in the inner world.

The ancient tradition of pilgrimage can still be found in Tibet where the landscape and the fellow pilgrims are seen as sacred. The yoga of pilgrimage is alive, just alive enough to feel in Tibet. There is the notion that our actions of body, speech and mind matter, that we can direct ourselves to awakening through training. Pilgrimage is an enactment of the sacred by the body in relationship with the earth. Reading the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism alone it can appear that spiritual practice is largely an internal dialogue , but looking at the faces and hands of the Tibetan pilgrims makes it clear that it is a dialogue with the place as well, inner and outer inter linked.

In Tibet, pilgrims engage in a series of practices at each of the sacred sites and monasteries they visit. These include prostration, prayer, making offerings, and circumnambulation. At the heart of each of these practices is intention. The intention is to train one’s mind toward the path and realization of enlightenment. Whereas our intellects can make leaps and bounds, understanding the realization that great teachers demonstrate, our bodies and deep habitual patterning are harder to change. By repeatedly enacting one’s intentions with the body it is thought that at the deepest levels of our being we can slowly effect change and progress toward outer goals. By embodying the truths we believe, we cause them to take root in our being. Thus, prostration enacts deep respect for the earth and all beings, and expresses a humility and intent to serve. Prayer brings the voice into that enactment. Circumnambulation is a walking meditation that generates great intention, imbedding it in the place. Offerings are an act of generosity; freeing up the giving and receiving that are at the heart of relationships both between humans and the earth. These practices are done over and over again throughout a pilgrimage.

The goals of pilgrimage in Tibet are most often places where great yogis and spiritual practitioners meditated and accomplished their realizations. The places - often caves now built over with a monastery - were auspicious spots chosen by these great practitioners as sites conducive to their meditation. The place and the practice become inter-twined in the generation of a field or matrix. These means that the original story of the great yogi who meditated there attracts centuries of other meditators. By this means the place becomes imbued with centuries of meditative practice and stories which deepen the effect of the place on the visiting pilgrim. They become places where ones practice is enhanced, where one senses that "the veils are thin" between the worlds. Sometimes it is a sacred mountain around which are woven stories of great yogis, protectors, and meditational deities. The landscape becomes filled with stories that remind one of the importance of spiritual path, practice and ethical and transcendent behavior.

Touching the Earth
Over and Over Again

The first night in Lhasa we went down to the holy temple, the Jokhang. The Jokhang, built by King Srongtsen Gampo around 642 AD, is said to be the holiest temple in Tibet. Still standing, though much abused during the cultural revolution when it was used as a pig sty and for grain storage, it has been somewhat renovated over recent years. The once active monastery now has only a few monks who are allowed to look after it. Chinese surveillance cameras endlessly scan the scene outside the entrance. This most holy of sites is where the fire of protest for the freedom of Tibet periodically ignites.

The doors are locked at night. Outside those doors old men and women are making prostrations, stretching their entire bodies onto the ground. You can touch the earth with humility, my Tibetan Buddhist teacher Lama Yeshe said when describing what he was doing when prostrating. Clasping hands over their foreheads they bring folded hands to the crown (body), the throat (speech) and the heart (mind) before lowering themselves to their knees and stretching out full length on the ground. To themselves they are saying May I purify body speech and mind in order to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings Over and over again they are prostrating at this holy spot.

Some have come from the farthest reaches of Tibet on pilgrimage here. Once in a lifetime every Tibetan would hope to get here for this very moment. This is not mindless obeisance to something outside oneself, it is a yoga of transformation, training body speech and mind.. The stones where they are prostrating are worn smooth with centuries of devotion to the path of awakening. You can feel the power of the intention in the stones.

Around and Around and Around

It is evening time, 5:00 p.m. at the site of the healing blue Medicine Buddha at Chakpori where the centuries old medical college used to stand in Lhasa. In the traditional medical practices of Tibet, spiritual health and physical heath were seen to be inseparably connected. The medical college was destroyed during the Chinese occupation of Tibet, but the sacredness of the place remains in the hearts and minds of Tibetans.

At the base of the hill were the college once stood there is a cliff. The cliff has been carved with a vast array of figures of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and meditational deities. At the center of the many figures of meditational deities painted in diverse colors is the blue body of the Medicine Buddha carved in bas-relief, protected by a roof canopy. The blueness of the body catches and holds the eye. There is something deeply satisfying and healing about just looking at it. At the base of the cliff are rows of the ever-present Mani wheels turning, always turning. The metal drums are carved with the mantra Om Mani Padme Hung, the mantra of Avaloketeshvara, the mantra of great compassion. Inside the drums are many more versions of the mantra written on paper. The wheels turn, the mantras turn, the mind turns - all mental activity focuses on the pure thought of compassion.

We sit and watch the evening crowd arriving by foot, circumnambulating clockwise around the hill. We are mesmerized by the colorful crowd of Tibetans: the wild Kampa warriors dressed in brocade with great swords hanging at their side; old men in simple drab suits quietly prostrating, bright, well dressed young women in high heels just out of the office - young and old making the evening circumnambulation route around the Lingkhor, the ancient route around the Potala and other sacred sites of Lhasa. Every evening around and around and around, re-investing the place with the sense of the sacred every night. A deep, conscious and on-going communion with place and practice. This, continues despite the unbelievable destruction of a people and culture by the Chinese.

Around and around and around - praying " May all beings be enlightened, may all beings be liberated, may all beings be free". There is a sense of what is absolutely indestructible in all of us in this moment when watching them on their nightly walk.

Every Grain a Prayer

In the month of pilgrimage, Saka Dawa (mid-May to mid-June), sand mandalas are prepared in the monastery next to the Kumbum, the great stupa in the ancient medieval town of Gyantse. Destroyed and rebuilt, the monastery attests to faith in the face of cultural destruction. Inside its deep, dark interior, lit only by butter lamps and occasional rays of sun, stand 40 foot high statues of Bodhisattvas standing in the silence of unshakable commitment to the awakening of all beings. Standing at the feet of these great beings, these symbols of commitment to spiritual path, I can feel what courage it takes to follow a spiritual path...They are standing like this in the darkness of my own soul waiting to be called upon.

On the floor at the feet of the statues are sand mandalas specially prepared during this month of pilgrimage. The sand mandalas, which will be swept up and offered back to the river at the end of the rituals seem to be speaking to me about the nature of impermanence and the yoga of devotion. Some thirty feet wide, the mandalas have been painstakingly designed and filled in with colored sand, every grain a prayer. The detail of these vast maps of the psyche is amazing. It took the monks who carefully designed and created it a month of mindful work to complete it, each day carefully dropping more colored sand into place on the pattern drawn in chalk on the floor. The colors of the four directions of the mandala penetrate deep into the mind. Somehow I recognize these psychic maps as part of my being. When the time of pilgrimage is complete these awesome works of art will be swept up and carried with prayer and devotion back to earth from which they came, thrown back into the local river.

On the altar are more forms of disposable sacred art, butter sculptures in fabulous colors. Every sound, color texture, image, fantasy, all are brought into the spiritual path. Each piece a practice of prayer for the artist and a reminder of spiritual practice for the viewer.

All these await in the womb-like darkness of the monasteries - places of internal transformation. The pilgrim, who has walked miles and weeks through the vast sunlit expanses of Tibet - relying on their great knowledge of that rugged, desert landscape for survival - plunges into the womb of transformation to offer prayer and to be engulfed in the art, color, imagery, intention and prayer.

Gazing into the Guardians Eyes

Next door to the monastery is the Kumbum, the focal point for centuries of pilgrimage. It managed to escape destruction during the Cultural Revolution. In the shape of a giant stupa, it contains room after room filled with meditational deities and frescos. As one moves from one room to another proceeding in a clockwise direction, it becomes clear that this place has been designed to alter the mind. It seems like a nuclear reactor of the mind - whirling matter into energy and light.

In some rooms are statues of historical figures. Standing there, one begins to contemplate their lives. In other rooms are stunning enlightened female figures who sit uncovered and unafraid of the power of their feminine form. In still other rooms wrathful deities sit wreathed in flames of wisdom energy, demonstrating transformation of all that we are into awakening. In one of the largest rooms the awesomely huge Amitabha Buddha sits surrounded by Bodhisattvas and a vast array of guardians. It is necessary to lean one’s head completely back to gaze up into Amitabha’s peaceful face.

The statue of Tara in one dusty dark room comes to mind often years hence. The energy form the artist invested in that statue is palpable. Tara sits in elegant feminine grace, gold body barely dressed, adorned with jewelry and sitting in side a spherical form. The whole thing is too beautiful not to completely stop the mind. She is a form of the completely enlightened feminine so without doubt that she is completely unforgettable. Nothing will do now except to wish to embody that.

My body was deeply affected by seeing and feeling all these forms of enlightenment. Having experienced all this transformative art I step out into the suddenly blinding sunlight in an altered state of mind. It is not merely the bright sun and sudden transition that caused me to feel disoriented. It is not possible to enter and exit the Kumbum and remain the same. My mind has been altered.

Heart of the Universe:

The most sacred pilgrimage in Tibet is to Mt. Kailas, the most sacred of mountains. It is a long journey even by truck, but for centuries Tibetans have walked for weeks and months simply to arrive at this remote place which is considered to be the center of the universe.

At the foot of Mt. Kailas, at the center of the universe stands a pole that symbolizes the well being of the world. Forbidden for years, it is now being raised again in Saka Dawa the traditional month of pilgrimage. Pilgrims have come from all over the Himalayan kingdoms and from all over Tibet on foot or horse back or truck. A goal, at least once in a life time, Tibetans circumnambulate the 36 miles around the mountain over the 18,600 foot pass three times in three days. This is indeed an awesome physical feat, particularly to those of us who do not live in a world of such physical rigor and high elevations.

Here, despite the military presence, Tibetans are in their world of faith and pilgrimage. When I arrived in the presence of the mountain for the first time driving over the low pass that marks the entrance to the valley wherein lie the sacred lakes of Manasarovar and Raksha Tal, I simply felt "Oh, so this is the center of the world, no wonder they say so". Here one enters into a powerful, life altering relationship with a mountain. The fervor Tibetans invest in this relationship with the mountain is awesome in its power and effect. With a devotion that defies ordinary strength, men, women and children circle the mountain with joy. Ancient ladies deep in trance ( better described as the "zone" of the athlete) circle the mountain at speeds that seem almost supernatural given their age. Their devotion does not seem to rise above or disconnect with the place, but deepens connection. My heart/mind takes in every moment for eternal replay in the psyche as if I had a video camera built in behind the eyes.

The place alone is so powerful that one can simply never forget it. It remains forever afterwards ever present within the my minds eye. The experience is deeply enhanced by the presence of fellow pilgrims whose bodies, hearts, minds, hands, and feel enact and recreate the sacred in every moment. It is not something soft and sweet, or soon to be forgotten on return to the world at home, but something deep, pure, clear and unforgettable. There is a place along the path around the mountain where everyone stops to contemplate his or her own death. Lying there with the rags left by fellow pilgrims to symbolize their death, watching the circling vultures and raptors, it is a time to consider my whole life and the motivation for living. There is a small heart beating on the vast earth surrounded by mountains and glaciers....who is it who gets up and continues walking?

Bringing it Home

Returning from a short backpack trip in the Indian Peaks Wilderness not far from Boulder, Colorado a friend and I were post-holing in deep, late spring snow. Blue jeans soaked to the hips, the sun shining brightly, we were exhilarated with the freedom and beauty of the place. My friend, Pat, who had not backpacked for some years, exclaimed in surprise at how unfriendly the people we passed on the trail were. Four young men in Lycra and nylon gear pass swiftly, barely acknowledging our friendly "hello". "Shouldn’t we be telling them about the trail conditions?" Pat asked as they sped on. But they hadn’t connected eyes or asked.

This scene set my mind puzzling over the radical difference between Anglo-American and Tibetan culture and their relationship to fellow pilgrims and the landscape itself. "Does it really change you to go there?" A friend asks about Mount Kailash. "Well", I grasp for a way to ground it in the ordinary "my son thinks so. Sure, I am perfectly flawed and ordinary, but I am not the same". "Ah" he replies gently processing the possibility of a path through the ordinary, through earth, place and the elements to awakening.

On return from Mount Kailash I received a call from Heidi, a German woman well trained in architecture who had been a fellow pilgrim on the trip. She said "I have done nothing but read books on Tibetan Buddhism for ten days since I returned, one after another without stopping". She had had to survive the war in Germany stealing Quaker oats from behind American troop barricades to feed her brothers. She is a courageous woman who later married an American Quaker. There was no mistake about the compassion she saw in that picture of the Quaker on the oat box. She saw many things on her trip to Tibet, and shared with us her daily observations of landscape, culture and poverty as she saw it. At the end of each day we would say "If you see only poverty look again". This was her koan. Something in that landscape had altered her inner compass.

Enacting in the outer world that which we wish to accomplish in the inner….

Later on a canoe trip with friends on the Colorado River I find myself hiking up a side canyon in baking heat. It is too hot and we have taken too long. The others are waiting. We haven’t found the petroglyphs someone said would be there. My companion is disappointed. In the moment of disappointment I find myself thinking if we were in Tibet everywhere would have incredible tales that leads one to the path of awakening. I look up from the hot dusty trail towards a side canyon, amazingly a multi-colored rock formation has just come into view. It is in just the form of a giant stupa, trademark Buddhist symbols of enlightenment found all over Tibet. I think of all the ordinary Tibetans I had met who saw each land feature in this kind of way, imbedded with ultimate meaning. "Look I say," there is the Great Stupa of Enlightenment Which Liberates Merely on Seeing". My friend smiles, heart uplifted. As we turn to walk back along the red dusty trail "Look", I say, "Now we return on the Good Red Road to tell our friends what we have seen". Our hearts settle into a happiness that has no words. We are present in this place.

I see that it is possible to enter the world of the pilgrim.

To actively express your concern for the cause of Tibet contact
International Campaign for Tibet: phone 202-785-1515/address PO Box 97241, Washington D.C. 20077-7314 or
Tibet House phone (212)-213-5592/address 241 East 32nd St. New York, NY 10016 to contribute aid and assistance to Tibet and to the support of Tibetan refugees in exile.