At the opening ceremony for our sesshin we chant, in part, in the Eko, “May each person’s powerful presence—dignified, profoundly introspective, and deep—have peaceful consequences that cannot be fully foreseen, affecting visible and invisible worlds throughout time and space.” This entreaty speaks to the notion of pilgrimage, for it carries with it a sacred intention for the pilgrim, the one who steps forth on a journey and inevitably meets unknown, life-changing situations that bring about a clarity of seeing and of being in the world—the peaceful consequences of practice. This is what our sesshin is, what one period of Zazen is, and perhaps what our whole lives are—a pilgrimage through the bones of earth meeting the essence of mind. This journey may be experienced through a rapturous and varied landscape, but at its core it is an inner expedition traversed through intimate, intangible, interior space wherever we go and in the terrain in which we discover ourselves.
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