Toward a secret sky : creating your own modern pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is like a spiritual path without a map. It’s not just following a spiritual tradition—there is a sense of striking out on your own and not knowing what to expect, like the Buddha leaving the comfort of his palace.

Here’s the tricky part: as soon as you decide to quit ego’s game of striving for success, and aim toward spiritual pursuits, the ego immediately gets on board. Ego is like a high-tech spy, and knows everything about you even before you do. And if you try to go behind its back, it rises for revenge. It does not like to be left out of the loop.

So as soon as you see through samsara’s game and yearn for a closer connection—to the Divine, or God, or Enlightenment—ego will start appropriating the new values. So ego will strive to be more humble and compassionate and holy. I’m sure you’ve seen this. You can feel when someone is genuinely humble and kind. Conversely you can feel when someone is pretending humility or being kind because they want you to see them as a pious person. It’s sticky, like getting honey on your fingers. Truth is not sticky.

My point is that it’s really hard to find your own Truth if you are too concerned about following someone else’s rules—how to behave, who to revere, what to believe, etc.

I saw this so often in both the yoga and Buddhist communities. Who has the most beautiful yoga asana practice or knows the rituals most precisely? Who is closest to the teacher and sees them socially? Who has the most stylish yoga pants, or—here’s a good one—the best ass? Who has done the most advanced practice, or spent the most time in solitary retreat? Or who has the greatest teacher? It’s so easy to confuse worldly signs of success with spiritual attainment. We all fall for it.

It’s ridiculous. These external references have nothing to do with the quality of a person’s practice. Only that person knows, (and perhaps her teacher) and it has nothing to do with how big her Instagram following is or how often she’s been featured on the cover of Yoga Journal.

Being a pilgrim is about releasing your old story and writing a new one. Or rather, a new story writes itself. Your life gets a revision. Sometimes it happens gradually, sometimes you get the direct download.

My so-called boyfriend had stood me up—again—in Bodhgaya. I was there waiting for a new work visa and my return flight to Bhutan to carry on with another season of teaching. I went to sit under the Bodhi Tree to watch my mind and tend to my heart.

Why do I hold on to nonrelationships, I wondered? It was a familiar story, being left hanging by a man I loved. I was at the end of my rope. Enough was enough.

The Hinayana Buddhist teachings say don’t get drawn into anger. Anger = Bad. Forgiveness and Kindness = Good. But the situation demanded something stronger. I’d practiced so much forgiveness and patience and kindness that I was starting to feel like a schmuck. And I was TIRED of it. What about kindness and forgiveness toward myself?

So much for peacefulness under the Bodhi Tree. I was agitated, hopeless, and exhausted. Was this whole journey just a waste of time? I didn’t feel any wiser or compassionater [sic] than when I started out on this path decades ago. I was irritable and depressed. So tired of heartbreak. And all the pilgrims. We were all doing our little thingy—our prayers and rituals and yogas and mudras and still acting out our neurotic tendencies, and for what? I felt intolerant. Tired of everybody’s trip. Their story. My story. Their endless questions:

I’d spent so much time confused about what to do. I felt a passion to help all beings stop suffering, but I couldn’t seem to get beyond my own. I didn’t know how to put the teachings into practice. I had taken the bodhisattva vow to help alleviate suffering in the world. How could I help all sentient beings stop suffering when I was such a goddamn mess?

Sitting with my mental chaos, I surveyed the monks, wondering if they stewed in messy emotions. Why are emotions so inconvenient, so taboo? What is so embarrassing about our inner lives? I prayed for relief from stinking thinking. I whined in my journal and watched the pilgrims.

Such fanfare we create around the search for peace and happiness. The variety of rituals astounded me. Everyone had a thingy: music, flashing lights, candles, paper lanterns, flags, water bowls, bunches of bananas, clumps of onions, fragrant flowers, sprits of perfume, pure white clothing, all red clothing, long unruly dreadlocks, neatly shaved scalps, reverent glances.

Some think all this fanfare will bring us closer to the divine and we tend to imbue it all with such seriousness. Or we go the other route and have partners, children, houses, and jobs; buy appliances and go camping on the weekend. All the roles we play to deny temporarily or forever that this thing we look frantically for out there is not out there at all. It is nowhere else but where we are, right here at any given moment quietly waiting to be uncovered by the fanfare with which we cover it.

I wanted to shout to all the pilgrims that the truth lies behind all of these things. “PEOPLE! We are all dying, don’t you get it? Let’s just be kind to each other until that day comes.”

The Thai monks had taken over the chanting. It always sounded to me like Aaron Neville and his Down on the Bayou style.

I had this erroneous idea that the spiritual path was all about love and light and peace and calm and radical acceptance. Sure. The END of the path. Once we’ve gone through all the crap. I kept wondering about K. Pattabhi Jois’s promise:

Couldn’t I walk the path to enlightenment AND have a partner? Must I bow down to a man for both?

Incessant mosquitoes, flies, and gnats buzzed in a black cloud around me, making me feel like Pigpen. I was swimming in nihilistic tendencies. How many of us would ever have a glimpse of realization? Even those of us who tried diligently, how much did this help? It felt totally hopeless.

I sat under the bodhi tree all afternoon. Not out of devotion, but because I couldn’t fathom anything else to do. Nothing inspired me to get up. I sat all evening, heavy-hearted and beyond despair. Absolute Couldn’t Care Less.

That night, hours and hours later, still sitting under the Bodhi Tree with a tear-stained face, flocks of green parakeets chirping in the trees and a faint wet smoke hanging in the darkening air, I let go. It just happened. Abandon any hope of fruition, the slogan goes.

I sat as my whole being shook, and prepared to accept what I did not want. Because I finally realized there was no other choice.

I shuddered in a wet puddle of tears late into the night, hungry and cold, alone in a strange land, grateful to the darkness for hiding my shame.

When you finally have an insight that changes your world, it’s not remotely what you thought it would be. We might expect a spiritual insight as a ray of light from the heavens, or like cupid’s playful arrows. In fact, it’s more like being cupid’s target—you think it’s going to be so cute and fun!—and then realize those fuckers are real and you’re bleeding profusely.

For the ego, it’s not a pretty picture. For the mind, however, it is like realizing the prison gates are open. You suddenly realize you can walk right through them. Because it is all an illusion, a big gigantic dream. Empty of anything permanent and lasting. Like a moon on water or a rainbow or a plate of chocolate chip cookies left out on the counter. Gone when you look again.

Truth is not found by being good or obedient or chaste, by making offerings or chanting prayers. There is no formula for waking up.

When you finally realize there is nothing to lose, because you are going to lose everything in the end or that you have already lost it, then something else arises. Something lighter. Life is but a dream: merrily merrily. Or not.

I realized that evening under The Tree that if I continued to maintain the whiny grasping mentality I would be miserable forever. I thought to myself, Okay. I know this one already. Let’s try something new.

The good news is that, after getting annihilated, you realize you can handle anything because in fact, “you” and “anything” are essentially the same.

I flew to Bangkok—where I would catch my flight to Paro—and splurged for a suite so I could enjoy my last bubble bath for another three months. Afterward, I sat at a sushi bar and ate salmon rolls (purring slightly), then walked to the market for some fruit. There are so many different varieties of luscious fruit in Thailand; it’s like Candyland. I was sipping fresh passionfruit juice from a straw as I made my way out of the crowded market. I put my shopping bag down for a moment to adjust my straw. I picked up my bag again, glanced up as I took a step forward and almost ran smack into a man. I stopped cold with a jolt.

My heart raced. I dropped my bag. My mind whirled and went blank as blood rushed to my face. I wondered if I was dreaming. We stared. I considered poking him to see if he was real. He had a strange golden hue about him. A good minute passed. We stared some more, mouths open. He laughed. I smiled and shook my head. We had not seen or spoken to each other in over a month. I thought he was still in India.

“I would give you a hug but I am contagious,” he said. “I had to go to the emergency room. I got hepatitis.”

It was the proverbial carrot—dangling in my face. But I didn’t want the carrot anymore. I was finished with carrots. Finished with vegetables, finished eating, for that matter. Fasting. And so I didn’t know how to relate to this man who seemed to pop up in my life over and over and pull me into a hot little Latin dance and then leave again. My head was spinning from India, my heart was numb from disuse or abuse—not sure which; in any case from not being used properly. I was ready to go back to Bhutan to my peaceful solitary hermit’s life.

But you have to keep on going. There is no stopping the treadmill. It’s either keep moving or get your pant leg stuck in the teeth.

He took me to his favorite restaurant near the river. He wanted to visit me in Bhutan. Neither of us could afford to pay the daily visa fee (mine was included in my employment contract), and I didn’t have the connections to get him in without a visa. I didn’t have a home anywhere, and neither did he.

Somewhere along the way, pilgrimage introduces you to your aloneness. We come here alone, we will leave alone. Since the bulk of modern culture proposes everything under the sun to deny this basic fact of existence, continuing to practice is an act of defiance.

Alone = All One. We are allone. At times this can be hard to bear. But my experience is that the voice of inner wisdom gets louder when we can tolerate our aloneness.

Society has dictated certain goals for you, as if your life was laid out before you were even born: find a partner, make babies, find a way to support yourself in a consumer culture and be happy ever after. When these goals elude you, or when you choose not to embrace them, the fundamental truth of aloneness can feel like a curse—like being banished to the forest with an “A” embroidered on your sweater.

At a certain point, I finally saw the depth of my confusion. I had to admit that I had no discriminating awareness when it came to relationships. I wanted so badly to be loved, that I ignored whatever didn’t support that scenario. I could not see the truth. I failed to see my own participation in the dynamics because I was so intent on getting what I wanted. I wanted someone to prove to me that I was worthy of love. Because I did not love myself.

I learned that I had to extend love and respect, compassion and forgiveness to myself before I could receive it from anyone else. I had so often denied myself this self-respect. I vowed to make that part of my practice.

Your greatest obstacle is your greatest gift. My singleness turned out to be the biggest boon, allowing me the freedom to pursue my spiritual path and a vocation that I was passionate about. But I had so much fear of being judged for what I perceived as a lack that I couldn’t recognize my obstacle as a gift. My shame clouded my light.

Pilgrimage is about a journey. For most of us, that journey takes place on Earth. Nature is our witness and place plays a key role. Power places can help accelerate your growth.

There are many ways land can be imbued with power. Crestone, Colorado, is said to be a power place, both because of its native American history as sacred ground, but also because of the geology and energetic “ley lines” that apparently converge here. In India, Bodhgaya—especially the area around the bodhi tree where the Buddha attained enlightenment—and Deer Park, where the Buddha gave his first teaching, are power places. Tibetan lore acknowledges the presence of hidden lands—beyul—that are “places where physical and spiritual worlds overlap and Tantric practice effectiveness increases with multiple perception dimensions.”¹⁰

Power places are like holes in the enveloping fabric of material existence. The veil feels thinner, like the unseen world is just a bit closer. You sense that there is something happening “behind the scenes” and would not be surprised to see the unexpected. They open up a space in which you can connect with spirit guides and with the source of sacred wisdom.

Because power places attract and hold energy there is also the possibility to dissolve obstacles more quickly, thus speeding up the process of karma. Everything—including obstacles—is heightened.

One of the most mysterious power places is the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. A land fiercely loyal to its traditions and closed to the outside world until 1974, the national religion is Vajrayana Buddhism. So there is a certain magic to life in Bhutan.

My friends managed a luxury resort in Paro, the second-largest town. When they invited me to come teach for three months, I dropped everything.

Life in Bhutan is incredibly slow. People move in rhythms redolent of historic agrarian cultures. With a population of six hundred thousand, yaks were more common than humans. I often walked around expecting to see Frodo or a donsy of gnomes. The most striking feature of Bhutan is an indescribable richness in the atmosphere, an energetic field much like the negative ions you experience before a thunderstorm, only different. It’s like you feel something in the air, but you don’t know what it is. It’s like you notice there is something in the air that you can’t explain.

One day I walked past the hotel’s conference room, serious chairs surrounding an important table, and I had a moment of insight. The scene contrasted so starkly to the surrounding rice fields, filled with extended family and neighbors, all camped out in the paddies, harvesting the family wealth with medieval tools. Next to this, business deals and big finance felt so extraneous, so totally irrelevant as a sustainable way of life.

I once heard it said that if you reduced the dharma teachings into one word, that word would be, “relax.” Something about being in Bhutan inspired this relaxation—an awakening and opening, or at least a softening of preconceived ideas. As one hotel guest put it, “This is the kind of place one comes to make major life changes.”

This is not to say you can’t have powerful experiences in “non-power places.” You can. You will have the exact experience you need to propel you along your path, no matter where you are in the world.

While I was in Paro, I finished a set of practices that I had been working on for over a year. I was thrilled to be finished, and a bit relieved. The same day, I received an e-mail that unleashed the most inexplicable and excruciating series of events—to this day it remains one of my hardest trials. My boyfriend—though he had not yet told me—had met his future wife. But when that e-mail came through, I just knew.

Another characteristic of a power place—they speed up your karmic lessons. That’s another way of saying the closer you get to realization the bigger the obstacles get. Sometimes that might look like your world is falling apart.

1.Take stock and identify support: Let go immediately of what wants to dissolve. The sooner you are able to let go of something weighing you down, the better. Allow space for something new to arrive.

2.Preserve resources: Stop spinning your wheels and reflect on the new landscape. This is when I usually schedule a meditation retreat. Make friends with space and try not to fill it up.

3.Solitude and silence are needed for creation: Notice the visions of your life that arise, whether or not you think they are realistic. What do you really want? Where does your heart tell you to go? Sometimes big breaks can give you permission to do what you’ve always wanted to do. You can’t rush this phase, so let it arrive in its own sweet time.

4.Take one small step in any direction: Just one step, for now. A life-changing journey begins with one small step.

What is the one thing you think you cannot handle—your worst nightmare that you have been trying to avoid your whole life?