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8. The 'Pilgrim's Progress':
From Without to Within |
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Midway in the journey
of our life I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight
way was lost. – Dante
Most of us would love to visit some exotic place. Despite
long lines at airports and travel warnings issued by the
State Department, we still yearn to stand on the Incan
ruins at Machu Picchu or daydream of lounging on a Tahitian
beach. Of course, when we leave town, we want to relax
and have fun. Leisure, however, does not seem to be the
only element behind our passion for travel.
When we leave behind our mundane responsibilities and
wake up one morning thousands of miles away from home,
we sometimes get in touch with part of us that has been
long forgotten through many years of daily routine. So
when we come home, we somehow feel refreshed and more
wholesome, despite jetlag and swollen feet.
A good trip, in this way, works like a good work of art.
Like reading Don Quixote or listening to The Ode to Joy,
a truly rewarding trip is one that helps us discover more
of ourselves. On the contrary, a mediocre trip, although
it may be full of frivolous fun, is devoid of such joy
of self-discovery and self-renewal. This may be due more
to the difference in attitude between a traveler seeking
new knowledge and a tourist waiting to be entertained,
rather than to the difference in distance or destination.
We are strangers to ourselves
Our desire to travel to a far-off land, as we may tell
from our experiences, is deeply related to our yearning
to reunite with something important or even sacred from
which we feel alienated. Our passion for travel, in this
sense, is something almost religious. This may be one
of the chief reasons for the popular union of travel and
faith, that is, pilgrimage.
In most major religions of the world, believers throughout
the centuries have made a journey to their sacred places
as an act of religious devotion: for example, Christians
and Jews to Jerusalem; Muslims to Mecca; Hindus to Benares;
Buddhists to Bodh Gaya and so forth. Furthermore, countless
local shrines and temples the world over are visited by
their devotees every year. People’s attachment to
these holy sites is so strong and at times misguided that
too much blood has been spilt in drawing and redrawing
their boundaries until today.
The etymologies of the words religion and pilgrimage are
suggestive of our essential motive for undertaking a journey
of faith, as language often shapes and is shaped by the
lives of people who use it. The word religion is related
to the Latin verb religare, that is, “to tie back”
or “to unite,” and the word pilgrimage to
the Latin verb peregrinari, that is, “to travel
abroad” or “to be a stranger.” The linguistic
origins of those words indicate that we somehow feel like
a stranger in the world we live in. So we leave our homes
and travel abroad in search of something from which we
have been estranged.
Our fundamental religious impulse, in other words, derives
from our sense of aloneness and alienation. As one historian
writes, “The desire to be a pilgrim is deeply rooted
in human nature” (Steven Runciman, A History of
the Crusades, vol. 1, p. 3), we see ourselves as strangers
who wander through foreign lands, seeking to unite with
something precious we have lost.
In many ways, people try hard to overcome this sense of
separation—the cause of which, however, they are
unable to pinpoint. Some seek solace in their supposed
saviors in heaven while others in love on earth. The Lotus
Sutra, however, identifies that from which we are alienated
as our innate Buddhahood. It teaches that our true longing
is neither for a god living above us nor for a perfect
lover ever eluding our grasp.
After many years (or even lifetimes) of deluded self-disparagement
(in other words, ‘the slander of the Law’),
we have become strangers to ourselves, to our true self,
that is, the universal Buddha nature within us. A fundamental
way to overcome our sense of separation, therefore, is
to see ourselves for what we truly are and tap into the
most essential part of our lives. The Lotus Sutra metaphorically
illustrates this point through the parable of “the
gem in the robe.”
The Lotus Sutra transforms
the idea of pilgrimage and worship
In the “Prophecy of Enlightenment for Five Hundred
Disciples” chapter of the sutra, the Buddha’s
disciples—reflecting upon their previous ignorance
of “comprehensive wisdom”—tell the following
parable: “World-Honored One, it was like the case
of a man who went to the house of a close friend and,
having become drunk on wine, lay down to sleep. At that
time the friend had to go out on official business. He
took a priceless jewel, sewed it in the lining of the
man’s robe, and left it with him when he went out.
The man was asleep drunk and knew nothing about it. When
he got up, he set out on a journey to other countries.
In order to provide himself with food and clothing he
had to search with all his energy and diligence, encountering
very great hardship and making do with what little he
could come by. Later, the close friend happened to meet
him by chance. The friend said, ‘How absurd, old
fellow! Why should you have to do all this for the sake
of food and clothing? In the past I wanted to make certain
you would be able to live in ease and satisfy the five
desires, and so on such-and-such a day and month and year
I took a priceless jewel and sewed it in the lining of
your robe. It must still be there now. But you did not
know about it, and fretted and wore yourself out trying
to provide a living for yourself. What nonsense! Now you
must take the jewel and exchange it for goods. Then you
can have whatever you wish at all times and never experience
poverty or want” (The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton
Watson, pp. 150-51).
In this parable, the good friend represents the Buddha,
and the priceless jewel sewed in the lining of the poor
man’s robe our innate Buddha nature hidden in the
depths of our lives. The poor man is symbolic of the “pilgrim”
in all of us, who wanders through life in search of true
happiness. His tragedy is that despite all the “energy
and diligence” he exerts himself with, he meets
nothing but “very great hardship” without
ever feeling truly satisfied. His problem is his ignorance;
he is looking for the source of happiness in the wrong
place—outside himself.
Just like this poor man, we often seek in vein our self-worth
in status, material possessions or the approval of others—whether
they are parents or partners, or supposed saviors or saints.
The last place we look is our own lives, for we judge
ourselves by the tattered clothes of temporary setbacks
in life and delude ourselves into believing that there
is nothing valuable intrinsic to our lives.
Regarding this parable, Nichiren Daishonin explains that
the wine that the poor man drinks is his “fundamental
darkness” and his “disbelief” of his
own Buddhahood (Gosho Zenshu, p. 735). He also comments,
“As Nichiren and his followers now chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,
they awaken from the wine of the fundamental darkness”
(Gosho Zenshu, p. 735).
Here the Daishonin declares that through devoting ourselves
to the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with faith in our
innate Buddhahood, we begin to experience the power of
the priceless jewel inside us and live our lives as Buddhas—as
persons of genuine strength and courage who are capable
of building their own happiness while encouraging others
to do the same. As the Daishonin suggests, the Lotus Sutra’s
“comprehensive wisdom” that enables us to
see the priceless jewel of Buddhahood inside can be found
in and cultivated through faith in our Buddha nature and
the practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Through the parable of the gem in the robe, the Lotus
Sutra underscores the futility of searching for the source
of happiness outside ourselves. It may be significant
to note that the Lotus Sutra is an outgrowth of the Mahayana
Buddhist movement, which evolved from the popular practice
of visiting a Buddhist memorial tower called “stupa”
and worshiping the Buddha’s relics supposedly enshrined
inside. The sutra, however, transcends the limitations
of its historical origin.
Through describing the appearance of the magnificent treasure
tower beyond any earthly measure as a metaphor of our
innate Buddha nature, the Lotus Sutra directs our gaze
from a stupa outside to the treasure tower inside. Also
through stories such as the gem in the robe, the sutra
stresses the importance of self-awakening instead of salvation
from outside. The Lotus Sutra, therefore, marks a Copernican
transformation of the idea of pilgrimage and worship from
one that is directed toward without into one that is directed
toward within.
In fact, the Lotus Sutra refutes people’s attachment
to sacred sites and particular places of worship. As the
sutra has its true practitioners foretell their future:
“Again and again we will be banished / to a place
far removed from towers and temples” (LS, p. 195).
Despite exile and persecution, those votaries of the sutra
pledge to spread its teaching far and wide. Their connection
with Buddhism is not tied to any particular place, nor
does their relationship with the Buddha depend upon any
sentimentality attached to his physical presence or his
relics.
Instead, what links those votaries with their teacher
and his teaching is their resolve to practice and spread
Buddhism with the same spirit. As they proclaim: “If
in the settlements and towns / there are those who seek
the Law, / we will go to wherever they are / and preach
the Law entrusted to us by the Buddha. / We will be envoys
of the World-Honored One, / facing the assembly without
fear….we proclaim this vow. / The Buddha must know
what is in our hearts” (LS, p. 195). The Lotus Sutra
makes it clear that Buddhism lives on not in “towers
and temples,” but in its practitioners’ “vow”
to spread the Buddhist wisdom of self-discovery and self-renewal
for the ordinary people living in “settlements and
towns.”
Our ‘pilgrimage’
is an inward search of Buddhahood
What stands in our way as we search for the priceless
gem of Buddhahood within is our doubt and fear. We doubt
our Buddhahood because we are accustomed to disparaging
ourselves. By the culture of competition and consumption,
we are trained to think less of ourselves if we do not
possess more than others whatever we are told to possess—usually
money, status and appearance. We fear and flee from our
Buddhahood because it is easier to remain a victim of
fate who can always blame everything but himself than
to become a maker of fate who must self-reflect and bear
the challenge of revealing her utmost potential.
Buddhas, nevertheless, do not live beyond such delusions.
Rather, Buddhas rise above their deep-seated doubt and
fear of Buddhahood through courageous self-reflection
and persistent faith in the essential self. Attaining
Buddhahood, in this sense, is the process of overcoming
our own doubt and fear through seeking true self-knowledge.
In the course of our Buddhist practice, therefore, we
must clearly perceive and guard against whatever distracts
us from this inward journey to find the priceless gem
of Buddhahood.
In The Pilgrim’s Progress, which remains one of
the most influential Christian writings, John Bunyan describes
in the style of dream allegory the pilgrimage of an ordinary
man called “Christian” from the City of Destruction
to the Celestial City. Christian’s spiritual pilgrimage
“from this world to that which is to come”—as
the book’s subtitle reads—may be understood
as a Protestant response to the medieval institution of
pilgrimage, which was promoted by the Church and eventually
degenerated through the abuse of relics and indulgences.
In fact, pilgrimages were imposed by the Inquisition as
penances for crimes and became part of civil and criminal
law penalties (Alan Kendall, Medieval Pilgrims, p. 19,
p. 109). Bunyan probably wished to correct such coercion
and corruption of pilgrimage by stressing pilgrimage as
the spiritual progress of a believer, not as earthly travel
to receive remissions for sins or to worship relics. As
an eighth-century Irish poem reads: “To go [to]
Rome means great labour and little profit; the king you
seek can only be found there if you bring him within yourself”
(quoted by Alan Kendall, Medieval Pilgrims, p. 12).
With a sense of endearment and nostalgia, we sometimes
call those English families who founded the colony of
Plymouth in 1620 “Pilgrim Fathers.” As the
original settlers felt like pilgrims and strangers in
the New World, many Americans still feel the same way—perhaps
not in the external environment, but in their inner landscape
of aloneness and alienation. The Lotus Sutra and Nichiren
Buddhism, in this regard, may act as a guide to bring
a sense of direction to America’s spiritual wandering.
A genuine Buddhist pilgrimage—if such a word should
exist in our vocabulary—is neither from our homes
to a distant sacred place nor “from this world to
that which is to come.” With our consistent Buddhist
faith and practice, we progress through doubt and fear
toward the inner source of true happiness in the here
and now and daily reach our destination of self-realization.
So ours is a new kind of pilgrimage, one that reorients
life’s wandering without into life’s discovery
within.
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(Originally published in the World
Tribune, May 24, 2002)
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