My talk this evening is going to be on pilgrimage to India.
And the reason for that is because I just came back from a
pilgrimage to India, so I'm now feeling inspired and ready to
talk about it. I went with a Singaporean group
of 57 people, came back on Monday from India.
So my idea was to share some of the, maybe not actually the
direct experiences, but maybe share some of the thoughts about
what the purpose of pilgrimage is all about, what we can expect
to get out of this sort of pilgrimage.
I assume that many of you probably have already been on
this sort of pilgrimage, and those of you who haven't been on
pilgrimage, maybe an opportunity to learn something more about
it, and maybe it will inspire you to do this sort of thing in
the future. So the first thing I want to
talk about, about pilgrimage, is basically what is the background
for this sort of pilgrimage? What is the reason that we do
pilgrimage? And the first thing I want to
talk about is the background for this sort of pilgrimage.
And the first thing I want to talk about is the background for
this sort of pilgrimage. And I know that the beautiful
thing about Buddhism is that actually there is a very good
reason why we do these things. And that reason is that it was
actually laid down by the Buddha 2,500 years ago, that this is a
very good idea to go to those places where the Buddha actually
was staying 2,500 years ago. And because it was laid down by
the Buddha, because he actually recommended this sort of thing,
we have a powerful authority there to go on this sort of
pilgrimage. There's a powerful reason why
this, is a good idea. Presumably, we can assume that
the Buddha wouldn't have said so if it wasn't a good idea.
So in Buddhism, there is a very kind of authoritative statement
behind the reason why we do this sort of thing.
And the Buddha said specifically, the four places
that we should go to are the places where the Buddha was
born, where he got enlightened, where he preached the first
sermon, and where he entered Parnibbana, in other words,
where he died, passed away, at the end of his career.
So what is the rationale for the Buddha to lay down this?
Why did he lay down this idea that we should go out and go to
these places? Obviously, there must have been
a reason for this. The Buddha doesn't do things
without reason. And the story in the suttas, as
we can read them today, basically is, this is all found
in the Mahaparnibbana Sutta, which is basically the sutta
about Buddha's last kind of long walk or trip when he was born.
Which eventually led to the place where he attained
Parnibbana. And this walk starts off in
Rajagaha. Rajagaha is the ancient capital
of the Magadhan Republic in India.
Magadhan was at the time of the Buddha's end of his life.
This was the strongest kingdom in India at that time.
So it was a very powerful state. And after the Buddha passed
away, this Magadha actually grew into a very, very powerful
kingdom in India. And eventually it became the, it
became to, basically encompass all of what is known as India
today, and even more. It also included large parts of
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, places which today are
part of China, for example. And it was an enormous, enormous
kingdom. So this was Magadha.
And it was centered in Pataliputra, Patna, which is
close to Rajagaha. But in the days of the Buddha,
it was Rajagaha, which was the capital of this kingdom, which
eventually was going to be the most powerful one in all of
Indian history. Basically.
So the Buddha set out from there, and he walks north, and
he walks through Patna, which then became later on the capital
of this republic, crossed the river Ganges, and then came to
Vesali. Vesali was one of the other very
large cities in India at that time.
And it was a very powerful place as well.
Now in Vesali, this is the place where the Buddha spent his last
rains retreat. You may have heard about these
rains retreats. It is basically a place where
the monks stay still, don't go anywhere for three months,
basically just practicing meditation and talking about
Dhamma and such things. So this was the Buddha's last
rains retreat in Vesali. And of course, he stayed put in
this place. And one of the things that
happened during this rains retreat was that the Buddha got
extremely ill, really, really ill.
And of course, the Buddha was getting very old at this stage.
He was basically 80 years old. His body was starting to fall
apart. There's a famous phrase in the
Sutta where the Buddha says that my body is like an old cart.
It's as if it's held together by straps, in the same way that an
old cart is held together by straps.
I've come to the last stage of my life.
This is what the Buddha says. And of course, it's to be
expected that when anybody, including the Buddha, comes to
the large stage of their life, they will get ill, they will get
sick. This is what happens to all of
us. And so it happens with the
Buddha. And it's a very, very severe
illness. And when this happens, his loyal
lieutenant or attendant, Venerable Ananda, gets very
upset and he gets very confused because he reckons that the
Buddha, this shouldn't happen to the Buddha.
At least the Buddha should say something to the Sangha and to
the people around him before he passes away.
And Ananda, after the Buddha has come out of his sickness, he
goes to the Buddha and says to him, while you were sick, Lord,
it was as if my body was drugged.
I couldn't get, a bearing on the directions.
I was, I couldn't even remember the Dhamma.
That's how bad I was feeling at the time.
And the Buddha, of course, he says to Venerable Ananda, of
course, the ordinary things that, of course, why should you
be sad? Why should you be confused about
this? This is the nature of reality.
Whatever has come into being must also pass away.
The physical body of the Buddha, of course, death has to happen
at some stage, an illness. But the powerful thing here, of
course, is that the Buddha, is that we see that Venerable
Ananda, who was a Sotapanna, a stream mentor at the time.
The Sotapanna is somebody who has seen the Dhamma of the
Buddha, somebody who has understood the teachings, and
somebody who understands what they're all about.
But even such a person, he's not yet fully enlightened, but on
the way to full enlightenment, even such a person grieves and
gets very sad when the Buddha is about to pass away.
This is very powerful. This is amazing that even a
person of that sort of level of wisdom and insight can actually
grieve and be sad about it. This shows us how profound this
particular thing is when the Buddha passes away from the
world. And indeed, later on, when the
Buddha lies down between the famous two salt trees in
Kusinara, where he eventually passes away, then there are lots
of people grieving. You see people coming from
everywhere, not only people, also devas.
Devas are these godly beings in Buddhism.
They're not actually gods in the ordinary sense of the word.
They're gods. They're gods only in the sense
that they are very powerful beings with lots of happiness
and long lives, etc. But they don't have the ordinary
powers of gods that we normally associate with other religions.
In that sense, they're very different.
So all these beings come, and they cry and they grieve, and
the Buddha is passing away. What a terrible, terrible thing
is happening to the world. And you can see, why is this
happening? Why are people so sad?
And if you think about who the Buddha actually is, you will
understand why. This is such a terrible event
for people who are not yet enlightened, who are seeking to
actually find freedom from suffering for themselves,
finding that peace inside, which the Buddha promised is available
to each one of us. Because the Buddha was the
wisest person around. He had full understanding of
happiness and suffering in the world.
He had full understanding how we can all gain that happiness in
the world and free ourselves from that suffering.
Because he had that full understanding of these things,
he was able to advise us, in the absolute best possible way, how
to overcome these things. Imagine, it's a bit like having
a father, or a mother for that matter, who has supreme wisdom
and can always guide us in the right direction, always guide us
to what is for our own benefit. Imagine that.
Imagine having that sort of person in your life.
And not only that, but also having supreme compassion and
loving kindness for us, always giving us advice in the best
possible way, in the most beautiful kind of way.
Always having that kind of love, always having that kindness,
having that coming from a good place inside.
Never angry, never upset. So when you start to imagine
such a person in the world, you start to see why beings were so
attached to the Buddha. Why even stream-enters, people
who were not fully enlightened, why even they actually had that
attachment there. So this becomes then the
powerful reason why this is happening.
And one of the things that all these beings are saying, as
they're seeing this, they're seeing the Buddha pass away,
they're saying, too soon the Buddha is passing away from the
world. Too soon the eye of the world is
disappearing. And this idea of the eye of the
world disappearing is actually a very profound and interesting
statement. Why is the Buddha the eye of the
world? The Buddha is the eye of the
world because he has seen reality as it actually is,
right? He has seen rebirth.
He has understood kama. He has understood the end of all
suffering. In other words, he has
understood all those truths. Which really matter for human
beings. What matters for us is finding
happiness and ending of suffering.
That's what we're all searching for.
And here is the supreme being who has found these to the
utmost extent. So it means that he has seen
these things. He has seen things which most of
us never can see. We cannot see these things
unless we are guided by somebody else.
And because the Buddha has seen these things, and he shows us to
the rest of us, that is why he is called the eye of the world.
It's as if he's seeing for us. And then telling us what it
actually is like on the other side.
We are all walking around in darkness, as if we're dreaming,
not really seeing reality as it actually is.
And then somebody comes along and says, This is the way it is.
And that gives you opportunity for you also to see the reality
of things. So the Buddha is the eye of the
world. So that is why we have all this
grieving and all this sadness at the Buddha's enlightenment.
Of course, not enlightenment, sorry, at the Buddha's passing
away. At the Buddha's passing away, at
the Buddha's passing away, at the Buddha's passing away, at
the Buddha's passing away, The Enlightenment, of course, is the
opposite. Of course, the only person who
probably is quite happy is the Buddha because the Buddha has
had to carry around this body and these five senses, which is
the body is still painful, the five senses are still a nuisance
because it stops you often from attaining deep samadhi and is a
disturbance. So the Buddha himself is
probably quite pleased that finally being able to attain
parinirvana. It's just everybody else who is
sad. Of course, the fully enlightened
beings, the Arahats also, are not sad because they have
understood how these things are. So then the Buddha realizes, of
course, that this is a problem and the Venerable Ananda goes to
the Buddha and says, well, what shall we do now in the future
when we want to pay our respects to the Buddha?
You have all these monks who always want to come and nuns who
want to come, their respects to the Buddha.
How shall we go about doing this?
You're about to pass away. And the Buddha says, what you
should do is that instead of seeing me, you should go to
these four places in the world, the place where the Tathagata,
in other words, the Buddha was born, where he was enlightened,
where he preached his first sermon and where he is passing
away in final nirvana. These are the four places you
should go. And when you go to these four
places, you will feel people who have faith in the Buddha, they
will feel emotions when they go to these places.
Something will happen inside of you which makes this trip, this
going to these places something special for you.
It will be as if, in a sense, you are seeing the Buddha.
You are seeing the Buddha. You are seeing the Buddha.
You are seeing the Buddha, even though he is not actually
physically present. And not only that, the Buddha
also said that if you do this, what will happen is that if you
are a person of faith and you go on this sort of tour and you
actually die while doing it, he said that you are secured a
rebirth in a heavenly realm because of all those good
qualities which arise in you when you go on this kind of
tour. So this thing we can see now the
rationale for why the Buddha laid down this thing.
The world was crying. The world was feeling that there
is an emptiness, something left behind.
And he was trying to put something in place which could
be like a replacement for the Buddha.
Of course, there is something else also which is a replacement
for the Buddha, which is much more important.
That, of course, is the Dhamma. Because the Buddha himself is
nothing really more than actually the Dhamma.
The Dhamma and the Buddha are basically equivalent.
The Buddha's enlightenment is the understanding of his
teachings and his teachings are nothing more than the expression
of that enlightenment. And he has taught us that the
Buddha is the enlightenment of the Buddha.
He taught that openly and freely.
So when you read the Dhamma, you are also in a sense seeing who
the Buddha was. These two are like two sides of
the same coin. And because the Buddha has
expressed that Dhamma fully and completely, it was available to
people, there wasn't really any more need for the Buddha to
remain in the world. The Dhamma was there already.
This is the other thing the Buddha said, of course, to make
people feel at ease and not so sad about his departure.
So this, then, is the rationale that the Buddha laid down.
Just before he passed away, he said, this is what we should all
be doing. And of course, again, the
authority there is very powerful.
And it becomes something that we all should consider seriously if
we are Buddhists. This might be something that we
should do in our lives. So the Buddha having laid this
down, then of course the next thing which happened was that
people, after the Buddha died, people started doing these kind
of pilgrimages, going to these holy sites.
And I want to talk a little bit about now about those people who
actually have historically done this kind of pilgrimage.
Because it's quite inspiring to see the kind of personalities
and how they went about doing these kind of pilgrimages.
And the first historical person that we all know about
definitely did this kind of pilgrimage was the Emperor
Ashoka. Many of you have probably heard
about Ashoka. Ashoka was the, as I said
before, the greatest emperor probably in Indian history.
He was ruling this massive Indian empire, which is larger
than the Indian Empire. Even India is today.
Extremely powerful man. And he was a Buddhist.
So he's probably the most powerful Buddhist that has ever
existed in our universe. And he lived about 150 years
after the Buddha. And after he became a Buddhist,
he of course did precisely this kind of pilgrimage, which we're
all supposed to do. And one of the nice things that
he did when he went on this pilgrimage, he erected these
famous Ashokan pillars in many of these places.
These Ashokan pillars. Ashokan pillars are like stone
columns. And these stone columns have
carvings on them. All kinds of carvings.
But the ones that were done on the four holy sites, if you
like, they often had carvings about like this is the
birthplace of the Buddha, for example.
The Buddha was born here. And then something more in
addition to that. And this is one of the ways that
we can actually find these Buddhist sites because of these
Ashokan pillars that were placed in those places 2,300 years ago.
Not long after the Buddha, 150 years after the Buddha.
It's still quite recent. So Ashoka did this pilgrimage,
went around the places. And lots of the very earliest
archaeological evidence which exists to this day is
particularly from the time of Ashoka when he went around.
So there already is one powerful example for us of what sort of
people actually did these kind of pilgrimages.
In the early days, most of the people who went on these
pilgrimages were obviously Indian people.
From around India because that was the only part of the world
which was Buddhist at this time. But slowly, of course, it
started to expand and other countries also became Buddhist.
The first Buddhist country after India was Sri Lanka.
And there's lots of inscriptions found to this day of Sri Lankans
who went to the holy sites and saying, you know, I came here.
I did such and such an offering in the name of such and such a
relative. And you find these kind of
inscriptions all over the place. So obviously there was lots and
lots of people. There was lots and lots of
pilgrims which came to these holy sites.
The next part of the history of pilgrimages is the history of
Chinese monks coming to India. And there are some very, very
famous Chinese monks that came all the way from China all the
way to India. And it was an incredibly arduous
journey in those days to travel from China.
They traveled from what was the capital of China in those days,
Xi'an. I think that's how you pronounce
it. But I may have gotten that
wrong. And they traveled then westwards
along the Silk Road. And if any of you have studied
the map of what it looks like in those areas, it is extremely
isolated. And of course much, much worse
1,500, 2,000 years ago than it is today.
It's all very high altitude, deserts, snow, cold winds and
all these things. And then having traversed all
those deserts, then you have to cross these enormous mountains
at the other end, either the Himalaya Mountains or the Hindu
Kush. But depending a bit on which
route you take. And then after only having
crossed those mountains, do you actually enter India proper.
There's about 2,000 kilometers of travel there.
And the landscape is incredibly barren and very difficult to
cross. And lots of these Chinese monks
died on the way. They died.
That's how keen they were to go on this pilgrimage.
They couldn't handle it. They died of altitude sickness,
of cold, all kinds of things. And never, of course, made it
back again to China. The first one, when they went,
of course, because the journey was so arduous, they went for
usually very long periods of time.
The most famous Chinese monk to go to India is a monk called
Xuanzang. He stayed, his journey lasted
for 17 years. 17 years. So imagine what sort of
pilgrimage that was 17 years away.
It's quite staggering. And he went with the blessing of
the emperor of China because the emperor of China in those days
was also a Buddhist. So again, you can see that these
were very high-level kind of pilgrimages going on in those
days. And Xuanzang went to China.
The reason why many of these monks went to China in those
days was twofold, basically. First of all, they wanted to go
to the holy sites to pay their respects there, to get a feeling
for Buddhism in its original land, just like most pilgrims do
today. That was obviously one very
important reason. And the other reason why they
went, and that was to actually collect Buddhist scriptures.
Because in those days, India was still the Buddhist homeland.
And if you wanted to find original Buddhist scriptures,
you had to travel to India in those days.
In China, there were already many translations into Chinese.
But often, just like today, those translations may not have
been so good, maybe not so accurate.
So people wanted to go back to the homeland of Buddhism to find
the original, the real teachings of Buddhism, just in the same
way as we are today, always searching.
But what actually did the Buddha teach?
What are the original teachings? So these Chinese monks collected
enormous amounts of rolls of scriptures and then brought them
back to China and spent decades translating all these Chinese,
Indian Sanskrit languages into Chinese.
And it's interesting because it's a precedent we can see
today, in today's world. You will find that many monks,
particularly monks but also academics, are extremely
interested in this question. What actually did the Buddha
teach? Who was the Buddha?
What are his truths? What are his true teachings?
Because obviously this is very important.
If we know what the Buddha taught, well that is the
teaching which has real authority in Buddhism.
What anybody else says, okay that's fine, maybe they're
right, maybe they're wrong, we can't really tell.
But the Buddha, we have to assume that his teachings were
right. So these are the real
authoritative teachings. And that is why it is so
important to try to base our practice on the authority of the
Buddha himself. And you can see how this search
has been going on. Basically ever since the Buddha
passed away. It's always been the search for
what did the Buddha actually teach.
So these Chinese monks went to India and there are some
beautiful descriptions of these Chinese monks going to India.
There is one famous monk called Fa Xian and he was one of the
first ones to go to India. And he went to Sabati where the
Buddha spent most of his time. And they wrote books so we know
exactly what they felt and what happened to them when they went
to these places. And when he went to Sabati he
was the first Chinese monk to go there.
And all these Indian monks were marveling at this foreigner
among them. This strange person who had come
2000 kilometers away just to come to Sabati, just to come to
India to experience what it's like to be in the Buddhist land.
And the Chinese monk of course was also marveling at all the
strange customs around them. And these Chinese monks were
saying and they were getting very emotional and crying that,
you know, why is it that we were born so far away from the
Buddha? Why is it that we were born so
far away from the Buddha? Why is it that we were born so
far away from the Buddha's Buddhist land?
Why is it that we were born in a different time from the time of
the Buddha? And they were obviously very
emotional about being able to come to the places where the
Buddha had been in those days. So very beautiful descriptions
you can find in some of these books.
And some of these books are still available today.
They are translated into English.
And you can read them yourself, these descriptions of these
Chinese monks 1500, 1600 years ago.
So after this, sorry, after these Chinese monks went to
India, as many of them died, that's how arduous those
pilgrims were in those days. Some of those Chinese pilgrims
also went by the sea route. The sea route from China going
through the Malacca Straits and across the ocean, very, very
dangerous in those days, just as it can be dangerous today,
infested by pirates and all kinds of things.
And again, many of them never actually made it to India.
They perished on the way. Some of the other pilgrims that
have gone to India are from all over the world.
You find pilgrims from Vietnam, from Japan, from Korea, later
on, or not later on, but also early on from Burma, from
Thailand, from Cambodia, from everywhere basically.
The whole Buddhist world did pilgrimages from the ancient
times to the present day coming to India.
In the present day, you find, for example, there's a famous
story of a Thai monk, who's supposedly very, very good at
this. He's a very good meditator.
Excuse me here. Who walked, it's only about 100
years ago, who walked all the way from Thailand, all the way
to India, just so that he could visit those four holy places in
India. Walked all that way.
It's about 2,000 kilometers walk.
You've got to be really, really keen.
There's got to be something inside of you which tells you
this is really important, to be able to walk for 2,000
kilometers just to see these historical Buddhist sites.
So you can see here the power of the Buddha.
Which draws people. And often these people are
people who are very, very serious about their spiritual
path, very serious about learning about Buddhism.
People who are really, find this extremely important to go all
this way to India, to seek the roots of their religion, so to
speak. And if you go to India today,
it's one of the things which I found so inspiring when I go to
these holy places, that you find that you find people of all,
coming from all over the world, seeing these places.
You find people coming from Taiwan, doing their chants in
Mandarin. And it's actually quite, it's
nice to listen to. I don't understand anything of
it, but it's quite nice to listen to.
And you find people coming from China.
You find people coming from Vietnam, from Korea, from lots
of people from Thailand. Thailand is very big on these
pilgrimages. You find lots of Sri Lankan
people. You find Cambodians.
And these days, of course, you also find for the first time in
history, lots of people from the Western world going to these
places, holy places in India. So when you go there, it's
almost like it's a gathering of Buddhist people from all over
the world. And that in itself is actually
quite a beautiful experience. Of course, lots of Tibetans as
well go there, because the Tibetans are very keen on going
to Bodh Gaya. Many of them already live in
India. So there's a coming together and
a sense of basically meeting lots of Buddhist people from
everywhere in the world. And it's quite fascinating.
Suddenly you feel as if you're part of this enormous Buddhist
family which spreads now across the globe.
Basically to every nook and cranny of this globe.
Today you find monks, for example, even in Africa.
There are black African monks who take part in some of these
ceremonies and things that we sometimes meet.
So they are everywhere. Everybody is getting inspired by
the Dhamma of the Buddha. So this is just to give you some
idea about the history of this pilgrimage and some of the
people who have done these sort of pilgrimages in the past.
Now the last thing I want to talk about is what can we expect
to get out of a pilgrimage? Why should we do it?
What is the purpose? What can it do for us in a
sense, these kind of pilgrimages?
And the first thing and the very powerful thing that I've always
found with going on a pilgrimage is that it gives the whole
Buddhist teachings, the whole of Buddhism, a very powerful
historical reality. Sometimes I found when I was
reading the Buddhist discourses, you read about the Buddha was
staying here, Buddha was staying in Rajagal, Buddha was staying
in Savatthi, this and that happened.
And sometimes you're not really sure, is it a fairy tale or is
it real? Sometimes it seems a bit like a
fairy tale. It's almost hard sometimes to
relate to it. It's a foreign culture 2,500
years ago in a far, faraway land.
How can we really relate to that in an easy way?
Sometimes it seems very foreign and hard to relate to.
So the beautiful thing about going to India is that instead
of having that sense of, you know, that foreignness which you
can get sometimes when you read the discourses of the Buddha,
what he said, it brings everything alive.
It's like you are going to those places which are described in
those suttas, in those discourses by the Buddha.
And it's very powerful because you read the suttas and you read
place names, right? You read Rajagal, you read
Savatthi, you read about Benares.
And then you go to India and you see exactly the same place
names. You see they're there.
They still have the same names. They're 2,500 years later.
And suddenly the inescapable conclusion for you is that these
must be historical places. Suddenly it becomes incredibly
powerful that these things which you read about in the suttas
definitely are historical places.
It drives home the point in a way which you can never do by
just reading the suttas alone. And it's very, very powerful.
Rajagaha, for example, is called today Rajagira and it's a direct
derivation from that original, that original name 2,500 years
ago. Benares is called Baranasi or
even Benares called the Baranasi in the suttas.
It's obviously exactly the same place as it was 2,500 years ago.
You go to a place in Rajagaha called, it's called the hot
springs in the suttas. And the story is in the suttas
that when the monks were staying in Rajagaha, they would go and
bathe in these hot springs and there was natural heating in
these hot springs. It was very pleasant to bathe
there, particularly in the winter time of course.
And you go to the exact same spot today and what do you find?
You find people bathing in these springs even today, 2,500 years
later. And this is one of the amazing
things about India. Sometimes you think that India
has stood still for 2,500 years and many things in India
obviously have stood still. There hasn't been that much
change. And that is why, you know, that
you can actually recognize these things even after 2,500 years.
Some years ago some Japanese investigator, they wanted to
investigate these particular hot springs.
Why is it that there were hot springs here 2,500 years ago?
And they found traces of radioactive elements in the
ground, of sulfur in the ground. And of course this was so they
could actually prove that these hot springs had existed here for
a long, long time in the past. One of my favorite stories about
making the history of India come true and make it really, make it
seem very vivid as if it actually is a historical reality
is when I read in the suttas that one of the places the
Buddha says that well before I become enlightenment, where I
was still living the household life and the Buddha lived a very
privileged life, he had a very pleasant upbringing and he had
all kinds, always the best food around him and everything of the
best around him. And one of the things he had, he
had of course the best kind of clothes.
Clothes which were made by the best kind of cloth.
Now where did that best kind of cloth come from?
It came from a place called Kasi.
Kasi is an alternative name for Benares.
So he was wearing Kasi cloth, Benares cloth.
That was the best cloth in India at the time.
Now if you go to Benares today, the amazing thing is that the
best cloth, the most famous cloth in India still comes from
Benares. One of those amazing things,
this tiny little detail in the suttas, which is almost like
mentioned in passing, it could mean anything, it could be a
legend, it could be a myth, but it isn't, it's obviously
historical reality here. Because it still is the case
today after two and a half thousand years.
I find it remarkable, I find it like, it's just like you get
this feeling that even the minor details in the suttas are
actually very true to their word.
And this becomes very kind of, very remarkable.
And when you travel around all these places, you see it again
and again and again, in all these places you see place
names, you see things that you recognize, things that go back
two and a half thousand years. And again and again it drives
home the point, these are historical realities.
The Buddha was a historical personality.
He was a man that walked this earth, very much like the rest
of us, two and a half thousand years ago.
There cannot be any doubt anymore that these things are
historical realities. And that of course makes your
faith become so much more powerful, when you realize that
these things are true, something inside of you happens, which
grows that faith, makes it more powerful, makes it really work.
So you can now see why this kind of trip can be so inspiring, why
it can lift you up, and give you a different understanding of
what Buddhism actually is, give you an uplift in your practice,
do something for you. So that is the first thing, it's
just bringing home the historical reality of Buddhism,
and the Dhamma, and all those places where the Buddha was two
and a half thousand years ago. And the second thing, which is a
powerful thing of going to India, is simply that when you
go to these places, you can often feel something when you go
to these places. And this is what the Buddha was
talking about when he laid down that we should go to these
places. He said that people who have
faith, people who are Buddhist, will have emotions when they go
to these places. And you can see that often
today, it happens that people go there and they feel a sense of
joy, or they start crying again out of joy often.
This happens all the time. Certainly on my trip, there was
one man who said, why is it that I'm crying when I go to these
places? And I said, it's obvious, it's
because you are a Buddhist, and suddenly for the first time, you
are basically face to face with the Buddha.
You're going in his footsteps. You've always been removed from
him, and suddenly you are in his place.
That's why you're crying. It's an emotional reaction.
It's to be expected that these things will happen.
And this is the second thing which becomes very beautiful,
this emotional reaction that we can have, because these kinds of
emotional reactions leave an impact, leave something in the
mind, which we later on can recollect that there was some
power to these places, something about these places which are
special. The reason that they are special
is, first of all, if you have a sense of faith in Buddhism, then
by going to these places, suddenly you are in a place
where you are close to the Buddha, as close as possible.
As close as you can get in this present age.
So if you have that faith, of course, that gives sense to
something inside you. You are close to that which you
have faith in. That in itself gives rise to an
emotional reaction often. The other thing which can give
rise to joy is simply the fact that in these places there may
also sometimes be powerful beings around, like Devas, for
example. And sometimes it's a bit like,
you know, sometimes you can go into a room, and you can feel
sometimes the emotion of the person in that room.
Maybe somebody is angry or something, or somebody is very
peaceful, and you can feel that the whole room has a sense of
peace, or a sense of non-peace if the person is upset.
In the same way, if powerful beings exist in a particular
place, it's almost as if you can tune in sometimes to that
effect. When you sit down peacefully,
close your eyes and try to meditate, sometimes you can feel
a kind of energy in these particular places.
Nothing supernatural, it's just the effect of presence of these
particular beings. So these are the kind of things
that we can hope to experience on these trips.
So, then what? Is that all there is to it?
Is that what pilgrimage is all about?
Is it all about just getting some hold of history and getting
a feeling for the reality of this, and getting some emotional
reaction? Is that what it's all about?
No, this is not what it's all about.
This is only like the thing that we do when we go on the
pilgrimage itself. The real significance of going
on pilgrimage is not these reactions or these things that
we feel when we go there. The real significance of
pilgrimage is how it affects our general spiritual practice, our
general spiritual journey. You may of course say that to go
to India is a spiritual journey in its own right, but of course
that's not the real spiritual journey.
The real spiritual journey that we're all on is this journey of
the heart. The journey of the heart which
moves towards peace, tranquility, kindness, goodness,
loving kindness, compassion, all these beautiful qualities that
we're all trying to develop in our lives.
That is the real spiritual journey.
It's an inner journey which every one of us has to undertake
on their own. And this is a journey which
happens in our daily life, every day, as we try to practice in a
correct way, do what is right, avoid doing what is wrong.
This is the daily struggles that we go through in practicing our
spiritual path. And slowly but surely it is
lifting us up, lifting up our minds, and imbuing ourselves
with those qualities as we practice.
So this is a real spiritual journey.
The thing about going to India is just a kind of help on that
journey. And that is how we should view,
ultimately that's how we should view a pilgrimage to India, as
an aid, as something which helps us on our real spiritual journey
in daily life. How does it work?
How does it help us in our real spiritual journey in daily life?
Well, just the very fact that these things have become more
historical, real for you, just the fact that maybe you have
felt something when you go to these places, that already will,
when you come back, will have a kind of background, subconscious
effect on your life, and already do something for you.
Sometimes you may not even be aware of it, but I would say
that this always has some sort of background effect, at least
for a while after you have come back.
After you have been on this pilgrimage, probably for your
whole lifetime. That's one way that this has an
effect. Another way that this has an
effect is simply that sometimes, if you feel a bit uninspired, if
you feel that your practice is going difficult, you're not
really going so well, you can sometimes just reflect on that
pilgrimage, and think about those highs and those emotions
you had when you went there, and then inspire yourself again, to
remember that this is real, this is important, this is
historical, these teachings actually do what they are
supposed to do, and then by inspiring yourself in this way,
you can lift yourself up, and you can again improve that
spiritual practice which you are trying to uphold in your daily
life. And this way, this sort of
pilgrimage can actually boost your practice of Buddhism.
It can give you that extra kind of energy, that extra kind of
thing which helps you going. These are some of the important
things in Buddhism, always finding these little skillful
means, these little extra things, which give you that
extra ability, to practice, to do what is right, to do what is
good, to make it easier to practice this spiritual path.
It's difficult enough, we need all the help we can to practice
this spiritual path. It is not easy.
I've never met anybody who says it's really, really easy to
practice this path, moving forward at tremendous speed.
This is incredibly rare. Most people find it difficult,
and it is difficult, because we are going against the stream of
things, always going, practicing against what our natural
inclination is, natural inclination often is craving.
And of course we have to go against that, and that's why the
practice often is difficult. Now I heard of one girl who went
to India. This is an example of maybe of
how we should be careful about going to India, maybe what we
should not be doing when we do this kind of trip.
This girl went to India, and she had some very nice experience
there. Her meditation was very nice and
peaceful, a lot of joy and happiness when she went.
But then when she came back, of course, that disappeared,
because it was a function of going to India.
That's why she felt this happiness and this uplift
inside. She came back again to her home
country, and she lost that feeling.
And then she went on a trip to Thailand, and she met some of
these famous Thai monks, and she asked one of these Thai monks,
well, when I went to India, I was feeling so happy and so
elated, and everything was so good, but now I don't feel it
anymore. And this Thai monk said, so what
do you feel now? And this Thai monk said
something like, well, you know, what do you expect?
Happiness comes and goes. This is the way life is.
You cannot expect that happiness to be there all the time.
And there's no point in just going back to India again and
experiencing it again, because if you were to go back to India,
and you were maybe to stay at Bodh Gaya for three months,
well, soon enough, that happiness would disappear
completely, and you would probably get really negative
about Bodh Gaya. You would get completely angry
and upset because of all the suffering, all the problems of
being in India, all the problems of being in India, all the
beggars, and all the problems around you.
The inspiration would fade, and all the problems would remain,
and it would just be terrible. You would get really negative
about it. Life is like this.
It goes up and down. Happiness comes.
Happiness disappears. We all know how these things are
in life. So don't hold on to that
happiness. Don't try to grasp the happiness
you attained in India. Allow it to go, and instead, the
right way of using it is, allow it to be a background thing in
your mind which pushes you forward, and now and again,
reflect on it to really understand and allow a little
bit of happiness and peace to come up in you.
Don't cling to it. Don't think that if you were
just staying in India, you could have this happiness like always
there. That is the wrong way of looking
at it. It's very understandable, but it
doesn't work. We cannot hold on to these kind
of things. So that is just some of the
experiences. I didn't actually say much about
my own travel to India because it might not be maybe that
relevant to the exact things I saw when I was there and what
happened. But these are some of the things
to reflect on about the pilgrimage to India.
And if you haven't been on a pilgrimage, but you consider
yourself that this might be inspiring and interesting, I
would recommend very much trying to do it at one stage in your
life. There are lots of groups from
everywhere going. There's always a possibility if
you want to go. If you feel that you're not yet
committed enough as a Buddhist, then wait maybe till you feel
ready for this sort of thing. But it can have a very positive
impact. Okay.
Any questions or comments? Anything any people want to say
about this? That is all I have to say here.
How many people here have actually been to India?
Wow, it's quite a few actually. Okay, good.
There's still potential for more though.
I just have a question. Yeah.
Is there a certain sequence of places you may want to visit?
There is no sequence. You can do whatever sequence you
like. It doesn't really matter.
And not only that, not only isn't there a certain sequence,
but very often people actually go to more places.
And just the four holy places. Often people also go to the
places where the Buddha stayed. There are some places actually
which are very, very beautiful. One of my favorite places, a
place called, I mentioned this before in my talk, Rajgir,
Rajagaha. It's a place called Vulture's
Peak. It's a very, very beautiful
place in India. It's very quiet.
It's very secluded. There is, if you go at the right
time, there's not many people there either.
And there's a sense of aloofness.
There's no city. There's just bush and things all
over the place. There's no things all the way
around you. And this is very difficult to
find at the other Buddhist holy places because there's always
lots of people around. So, not only is it nice to go to
the four holy places, but I would recommend also going to
some of those other places which can also be very inspiring.
There's another thing about actually going on pilgrimage
which maybe I should mention, which I forgot to say in my
talk. One of the nice things about
going on pilgrimage is that you, if you go, you often go with a
monk and hopefully a senior monk.
Somebody who has a good understanding of the places and
the Dhamma and all these things. And usually you get like Dhamma
discourses, like every day. You know, whenever you go
somewhere, we talk about Dhamma and we have Dhamma discussions
basically the whole trip. It's a great way of immersing
yourself in the Dhamma much more deeply.
Not only do you get the inspiration of the places, but
you get that continuous Dhamma input.
And it's really marvelous. On my trip, we were talking
Dhamma all the time. There was no end to it.
I think I was talking five or six hours a day.
I had a sore throat at the end of the day.
After all that talking, people were giving me dollars all the
time to keep my throat going. Which was very kind of them, by
the way. They really looked after me very
well. So, and this is great because
when you have that continuous impact on Dhamma, you have a lot
of possibilities of asking questions, getting answers.
And you can always, when you ask one question, very often another
question comes up, right? It's like you always have to
sort of keep threading this ball of thread.
It's almost like if you, if you're sitting in a room and you
start to run out, something more happens.
There's never an end. There is an end maybe, but there
is a lot of questions that people often have in Buddhism.
And this is an incredible chance to like ask questions, a lot of
them good questions, and get a much more profound understanding
of Buddhism as well. That's one of the beautiful
things about going on pilgrimage, is intensity of the
Dhamma, which normally very, very few people have in their
daily lives. It's a great opportunity to get
much deeper into the Dhamma and understand it.
Does that answer your question? Tony, is that right?
Yes, okay, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.
I'd like to mention the in the place where I was very
emotionally affected was in an unusual place, which was a
museum. Yeah.
But it's very acceptable to be okay.
Okay. That's a very good point.
I think that's important, and a very important thing to point
out actually, that in India now, there is in the Delhi Museum,
it's probably the only place in the world where there are relics
of the Buddha, which almost with absolute certainty are the real
relics of the Buddha. We often hear about relics of
the Buddha. We can see relics of the Buddha
on shrines everywhere. But very often we have no idea
where those relics come from, whether they are real relics or
not. Some of them may be, some of
them may not be. Basically, we haven't, to be
honest, we haven't got a clue basically where they came from.
But the relics which are in the museum in Delhi and possibly
also some which are found in the museum in Patna in India, these
were discovered very quite recently, only about 100 years
ago. And the way the discovery
happened is such that it seems extremely likely that these are
real bone fragments from the Buddha himself.
And that is remarkable because there's a lot of historical
certainty there. And the reason why this is so
important and so certain, I can maybe tell you the story
briefly, is because after the Buddha passed away, the relics
of the Buddha from the funeral pyre were divided into eight.
This is what it said historically.
Ashoka later on also confirms that.
He actually dug up those particular stupas.
A stupa is like a burial mound which also often contains
bricks. It's one of these big Buddhist
structures which you find all over the world, these stupas.
And after these stupas had been divided into eight parts, all
the main tribes of India at the time who were Buddhist got one
part each. And each of these tribes built a
stupa to put those relics inside.
And one particular of those stupas, those kingdoms, were the
Sakyans. This was a clan of the Buddha
himself. Soon after the Buddha died, that
Sakyan kingdom was sacked by the Kosalans, and it went back to
the jungle. And it was basically just a
jungle place for 2,300 years until it was discovered by a
British archaeologist about 110 years ago, roughly.
And they were dug out of the ground.
He found this stupa, a small, very simple stupa, because
that's what they were in those days.
He dug it out, dug out this little casket or whatever it
was, and on that casket it says, the remains of the Buddha.
I mean, you know, it's absolutely remarkable.
And he dug them out on the ground, and then of course after
that, these became very, very famous relics because of that.
And they are now kept in the museum in Delhi.
The king of Thailand, who was a very devout Buddhist, made a
special kind of casement for these things because they are
obviously so precious. And there's even now an
exhibition, I went to an exhibition in Singapore as well,
called the Nalanda Trail, which basically was an exhibition of
Buddhist statues. And they had also obtained some
of those bone fragments from the museum in Delhi to show on
display there. So this is very powerful.
Here you're actually seeing the real remains of the Buddha.
That's a very good point. Yeah, thank you for pointing
that out, Ainsley.