The Modern #Pilgrimage: #Dhammayatra #Dhutanga 2021
Author: Eleanor Choke-jaya
Date: 1st January 2021
Keywords: #pilgrimage, #Dhammayatra, #dhutanga, #LotusLand, #Bodhi, #sacred, #meditation, #tour, #spiritual, #enlightenment, #TripleGem, #trip, #motivation, #sightseeing, #MiddleWay, #faith
Length: 1756 words
🍵🍴🍵🍴🍵🍴🍵🍴🍵🍴🍵
Many spiritual traditions encourage their followers to go on #pilgrimage. #Pilgrimages are time spent out of ordinary life but they are not holidays in the sense that most people think of them today. Rather, it is time when people visit the #sacred sites, and the sight of the #sacred place reminds them of the religious master and the enlightenment of virtuous potential in their mind stream, but does not arouse craving, nor the pleasure and excitement of #sightseeing. Rather, it develops in them a strong sense of compassion. Ideally, pilgrims should be a better person when they return, otherwise it is not useful, a waste of money and time.
Looking into the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it says that a pilgrim is: one who journeys in foreign lands, or a wayfarer, or one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee.
The pilgrim sets off to a geographic location, yet their real quest is not for a physical place but rather for an inner destination. The outward act of #pilgrimage can, indeed should, lead to an inward change. Therefore, the pilgrim cannot just be a tourist.
The Modern Dhammayatra #Dhutanga 2021 is not the usual shopping ‘#pilgrimage’ that so many Thai Buddhists do every year. Rather, it is one of the meditation practicing trips to visit sites of Buddhist Dhammakaya Tradition importance.
The event is displaying #dhutanga monks travelling on foot in a single file line from Dhammakaya Temple in Patumthani Province to Suphanburi in the country’s western region, passing places along a corridor walked by Venerable Sodh Candasaro himself.
The #pilgrimage takes all the participants both monks and lay people to visit magnificent locations that offer a window into how Dhammakaya Tradition took root and began to flourish. Perhaps these stories will inspire the Blogg’s readers to take a trip of their own to join part of the event this year.
There are seven significant places along the route, the sight of which will arouse strong emotions in those with faith. First, the #LotusLand where Venerable Sodh Candasaro was born, second, Bang-nang Tan, a place where he made the resolution to a life-long ordination, third, Song-phi-nong Temple where he ordained, forth, Bodhi Bon Temple where he attained Dhammakaya, fifth, Bang-pla Temple where he first started teaching the Knowledge of Vijja Dhammakaya, sixth, Paknam Temple where he run the meditation workshop throughout his abbotship, and seventh, Dhammakaya Temple where Dhammakaya Meditation technique is world-widely disseminated.
The posterity: the monk, the novice, the layman or laywoman who are practicing Dhammakaya Meditation method should visit these places. All of the places are containers of story. This makes them an authentic book of the Venerable’s life history. For many Dhammakaya Buddhists today, it is transformative to leave home, travel a long way, and go to the places associated with the Great Dhammakaya Master, Sodh Candasaro’s life.
Obviously the 2021 #pilgrimage tracing the life and times of Venerable Sodh is a journey which is undertaken with a ‘devout heart’ of all Dhammakaya devotees and Buddhists in general; it is very beneficial to one’s spiritual growth. And it is a behavior growing out of and able to reinforce positive emotions like Right View, determination and humility which in turn strengthens one’s practice to attain the inner Dhammakaya bodies. This spiritual #pilgrimage, at least, can both open up the heart and reaffirm faith, and commitment, to the participants.
What follows are some reflections on the experiences they have. Once the pilgrims arrive at the first overnight stop at the #LotusLand, the birth place of the Great Dhammakaya Teacher, especially when they enter the inner part, they can immediately feel that it is really a very special place. When looked at through the eyes of a real estate developer is a social desert: serene and spiritually quiet.
It is worth remembering that, of all the billions of planets Venerable Sodh could have been born on, he chose ours; and of the hundreds of countries that make up our world, he chose Thailand; and of all the places that make up the country he chose the #LotusLand. And this makes the spot so important.
However, the main point of #pilgrimage is not just to visit a saint’s birthplace, or to gaze on the site of an extraordinary happening. Pilgrims undertake a #pilgrimage to help them remember the Great Master. For us, as Dhammakaya Buddhist practitioners, remembering Venerable Sodh is not like having a daydream about our teacher; what we are doing is remembering each and every one of his teachings, and practicing accordingly. Our ultimate goal is to become exactly like him: attaining inner Dhammakaya bodies.
So, ideally, our sole motivation and the driving force behind absolutely everything we do, including going on #pilgrimage, is the wish to achieve the #MiddleWay. And, it is important to remember that the memorial sites we visit during the #pilgrimage will be yet another powerful conditioning influence on us, and a very positive one to help us achieve the goal.
The second stop is the spot called Bang-nang Tan, where he determined to take a life-long ordination. It is important because generally most people find, much to their surprise, that establishing the right motivation is really quite difficult and, certainly at the outset, they struggle; particularly the right motivation to develop a genuine sense of renunciation or a renunciation mind is extraordinary hard to be. And people often find their attitude changes after that. So, at the setting out, they should make the wish that will continuously remind them of all of the great noble enlightened qualities, merit and defilement purification as the result of their decision, to nurture their motivation alive until the act is done.
And with his firm faith, he in the later date entered the monkhood at the temple named Song-phi-nong situated on the river bank along opposite his own house. And Song-phi-nong Temple is considered one of the seven #sacred places related to his life: the third stop on the #pilgrimage route.
The forth stop is Bodhi Bon Temple in Nonthaburi Province. In spite of an abundance of temples in the area of Bang-ku-weang, it was inside the Uposatha of Bodhi Bon Temple that the Venerable chose to sit, and it was also there that he achieved the #MiddleWay.
On the #pilgrimage, pilgrims by simply looking at the spot inside the Main Chapel where Venerable Sodh sat, they are overwhelmed by the fact that on an ordinary meditation seat, not an expensive Italian sofa or jade throne, he meditated whole night long and rediscovered the Knowledge called Vijja Dhammakaya and reestablishing the tradition and becoming the Great Master of the lineage, later decided to teach it to the public. Meditating inside the Main Chapel, many pilgrims feel that they are doing the same thing the Great Master did in the present moment.
Knowing that motivation is of the utmost importance for practitioners, rather than making mundane wishes for good health and prosperity, serious pilgrim meditators make their main focus on the wish that eventually they will achieve exactly what the Great Master achieved here.
The act of visiting the Bodhi Bon Temple and showing respect for the place is a recognition of the extraordinary event that took place inside the Main Chapel. Even though, good practitioners are able, in their practice, to visit the #sacred places that reside within their own bodies, and in this way make progress on their path to enlightenment, those of us whose practice is not quite so advanced can at least visit the outer reflection of these #sacred sites.
The next overnight stop is Bang-pla Temple where much of what we know today as Dhammakaya Meditation being taught for the first time. It is where Venerable Sodh first made the #MiddleWay known to people like you and me. This meaningful #pilgrimage site allows us to make a connection with the teaching as well as with the place it was taught and think of both who taught and who studied at those very early time of the Tradition and fostered the knowledge which we now enjoy the benefits. On the #pilgrimage, Dhammakaya devotees pay homage to and feel their gratitude to all of them. To pay homage to the teachings all we have to do is remember and practice them.
Nowadays, the Great Master Sodh’s memorial places have been visited by hundred thousands of pilgrims; this is what makes them so vibrantly alive and profoundly affecting. And many who have gathered to practice in those places find they discovered a new appreciation for the Tradition and their practice was enriched.
However, it is important to remember that making a tour of any Buddhist #sacred sites will not solve all the spiritual problems in one go, nor will we immediately attain inner #TripleGem. But to cultivate the spiritual progress, one of the traditional methods that help us remembering the teachings and putting them into practice is the practice of #pilgrimage. And in many ways, the process of #pilgrimage is like that of a longer retreat: there is anxiety, resistance to the imposed practice, but we should do it anyway. While on #pilgrimage, learning Venerable Sodh’s life story along the route he trod, is more inspiring than any legend. It is simple and humane, and it ensures that attaining the inner Dhammakaya is possible for all of us.
Some might argue that we can attain the subtle Dhamma inside our body in any place including in our own house, why should we bother about go on a pilgrimage? Well, sometimes we have to go to the master’s memorial places once or twice to realize that the living room in our house is our place of attaining the Dhamma too.
🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠
Related article(s):
Pilgrimage in the Ostentatious Outlook: Fake or Innovation
Author: Eleanor Choke-jaya
Posted on: 1st December 2019
Keywords: #pilgrimage, #innovation, #fake, #event, #monk
Length: 1204 words
https://aloosechitchatblogg.blogspot.com/2019/12/pilgrimage-in-ostentatious-outlook-fake.html
No comments