Episode Details

Greetings Friends,

We began the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women with the first koan—The Old Woman of Wutai, a story about the spiritual path, pilgrimage and life direction that features crone wisdom. If you are interested in joining the summer read, more information and reading schedule can be found here.

In this email I would like to share the koan and some reflections about life as pilgrimage. I would also love to create space for your own reflections and engagement.

First the koan.

Hidden Lamp Case 1: The Old Woman of Wutai

AN OLD WOMAN lived on the road to Mount Wutai. A monk on pilgrimage asked her, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?” The old woman said, “Right straight ahead.”

The monk took a few steps, and she said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.” Monks came one after another; they’d ask the same question and receive the same answer.

Later, a monk told Master Zhaozhou Congshen what had happened and Zhaozhou said, “I’ll go and investigate that old woman myself.”

Next day Zhaozhou went to the old woman and asked, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?”

“Right straight ahead,” she replied.

Zhaozhou took a few steps.

The old woman said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.”

Zhaozhou returned to the monastery and told the monks, “I have checked out the old woman of Mount Wutai for you.”

This story begins with a person on pilgrimage. Chozen Roshi defines pilgrimage in her book on Jizo Bodhisattva as, a long journey to a sacred place as an act of devotion.

* Have you ever been on pilgrimage?

* Where did you go? Who/what did you encounter?

* What did you learn?

The Practice of Pilgrimage

I find pilgrimage to be a very good metaphor for our life as spiritual practice, especially for those of us who don’t live at a monastery or temple. In our daily lives we move around, we walk, we journey to different places whether mentally or physically. We encounter strange, wise, ordinary and mysterious beings.

Our seemingly mundane travels to the grocery store, to the gym, to the park, to work could be seen as journeys to sacred places. What makes something sacred? I think this is an important question to ponder. What in your daily life is sacred? What defines an encounter with the sacred?

In the Buddhist tradition people make pilgrimage to see the places in the buddha’s life, where he taught, the bodhi tree where he was enlightened, where he was born and died. These travels of devotion can be inspiring and connect us to an ancient path of practice.

So too, we are living buddhas. Where we walk, drive or bike is sacred land. When we are present, attentive, mindful, aware—we are actualizing a practice of devotion.

In her book, Jizo Bodhisattva: Modern Healing & Traditional Buddhist Practice Chozen Roshi explores the relationship between pilgrimage and wandering, she says:

There is a difference between a pilgrim and a wanderer. Buddhist teachings use “wanderer” to refer to someone who is lost in the rounds of suffering existence, transmigrating through the six worlds. As we move day by day, hour by hour, among states of ignorance and stupidity, irritation and anger, greediness, coveting and jealousy, pain and mental discomfort, we are like people wandering in a dense primal forest, unable to find a way out or even to climb above the trees to see if there is an edge to this tangling wilderness. We will do this until we realize, hear or are shown that there is a way out.

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