Talk: Inner Pilgrimage Of The Body

In this talk, Reggie discusses the deep inner call of spiritual pilgrimage. He says that outer pilgrimage involves visiting holy places in the world, while inner pilgrimage is the journey that unfolds when we explore the sacred landscapes of the body.

Transcript

I appreciate your inwardness so,

So very much.

When people are within their own journey and,

You know,

We're here,

It's interesting.

I mean,

In some sense,

We're all,

Each one of us is very alone within ourselves and with the process that's happening with us.

And at the same time,

There's so much warmth and intimacy that develops,

You know,

When we are that way between us.

When people are within in this way,

They become very beautiful.

And like I said yesterday,

I wish I had you for a month,

See what would happen.

You know,

This tradition that we're practicing here,

There's a notion of pilgrimage.

And usually in Tibet,

Anyway,

There were certain places that were,

You could say,

Gateways to the deeper world,

Gateways to the reality.

And people usually,

During certain times in the year,

When they weren't looking after livestock or they weren't having to farm,

They would go,

You know,

Go to these places.

And there's usually one place,

If you live in a certain locale,

There would be one place like that.

And these were places that,

For some reason,

There's a different kind of space and there's a different kind of time.

Sometimes it would be a huge cave where people had meditated,

You know,

A very great deal.

It could be a structure,

You know,

Like a stupa.

It could be a lake or it could be just a certain place,

A certain ravine somewhere.

And the places,

Of course,

Were always the same.

And,

You know,

There's an interesting corollary with what we're doing here.

We do this bodywork and,

For us,

The pilgrimage site is the body.

And in the Indian Vajrayana tradition,

That's actually what they say.

There's the outer pilgrimage,

But then there's the inner pilgrimage of the body.

And when you do the inner pilgrimage,

You visit all the sacred sites.

And there are beautiful songs about how the River Ganges is found in the body and Mount Kailas is found in the body and all the the splendors of the world are found in the body.

When we,

You know,

We get together periodically in,

You know,

Our tradition and,

You know,

There's the group.

And within that framework,

We get together and practice.

And that is the pilgrimage when we meet together and practice.

The thing about pilgrimage,

Which is not often understood,

Is that you come to the same place not only year after year,

For example,

In Tibet,

But generation after generation,

Everybody comes to the same place.

And the important point is not seeing as many pilgrimage sites as you can.

It's coming to the one place where the opening happens for you.

In normal life,

We go here,

There and everywhere.

And meantime,

There's no inner movement.

There's no journey,

Most of the time for most of us,

Not really,

Not in terms of what we could do.

So plenty of outer movement,

But nothing happening.

And the pilgrimage thing is exactly the opposite,

Which is you go to the same exact place.

Like we come here,

We do the same exact practices,

Same practice.

I mean,

In the body work,

There are lots and lots of different practices,

But most of us find one or two that really are gateways for us.

And that's actually,

That's what we're looking for.

And so most of us will gravitate to one or two or three practices,

Same practice.

And then we enter that space,

That place that is so open and so different from ordinary space.

And we enter into a different kind of time.

It's a time that has a different rhythm to it.

And it's because it's sacred time and it's sacred space.

And what happens when we do is that the journey unfolds.

And so it's interesting that it's the exact opposite of our usual thing.

In this thing,

We come to the same place where we've always come generation after generation,

Lifetime after lifetime for many of us maybe.

And when we're in that space,

Then the inner movement begins to burst and burgeon and unfold and roll forward.

There's a tradition in,

You know,

Among the Siddhas that more you don't move,

More your journey unfolds.

And what they're talking about is,

It's kind of radical.

I mean,

Some of these people would build a hut that was so small,

They couldn't even lie down.

They just had to sit up all the time and keep the rain off basically.

They would vow to be there for a year and they would have somebody bring them food.

And they would even,

As we were talking about yesterday,

Stop their breath.

And the more you don't move,

The more your journey unfolds.

It's so interesting.

It's exactly the opposite of the normal approach.

Run,

Run,

Run,

Run,

Run.

Nothing's happening.

Run for a lifetime and very little has happened.

Stop completely dead in your tracks.

Sit,

Sit,

Sit,

Sit.

And the journey unfolds at its most expeditious and rapid possibility.

So often when we start sitting,

We find that sitting still for an hour is difficult and very intimidating.

And initially,

Because we don't have the outer stimulation,

We're bored.

I mean,

Initially we think this is really boring.

There's nothing happening.

I can't stand this.

I need this.

I need that.

You know,

And our mind is going out.

But after a while,

We start to tap into the fact that something much,

Much more interesting is happening in the non-movement of our impulsiveness,

The non-movement of our body.

Something much,

Much more interesting,

Which is our own spiritual life that is unfolding moving forward.

So,

It would be wonderful if we could gather here like this every two weeks for a few days.

For all of us,

It would be wonderful if we could do it and make the pilgrimage back to this place.

And I'm not talking the physical place.

I'm talking about the space that we go into when we practice.

And maybe we should look to it,

Something like that.

I feel,

You know,

When I teach,

It's so interesting because the space is always the same that I go to.

And when I travel around different places and meet people,

I feel so at home because I'm able to spend major time in that space that is infinite and out of which my life comes.

Meantime,

Every situation is different.

Every person is different.

Every day is different.

Every challenge is different.

Every talk I give is different.

You know,

Everything's different.

The practices actually are different.

You know,

Never taught the same way.

In accord with the karma,

Everything changes.

Everything's different.

Meantime,

There's this feeling of the space is always the same.

It's always deep.

It's always open.

It's always home.

And it's an amazing thing to have something that's steady and that reliable and that much the same in one's life and to be able to draw from that and rest in it and return to it.

The more we can do that,

Then the less demand we make on the world to be a certain way.

The more we can rest in this sort of open and empty and completely satisfying way within our natural state,

The less demand we make that the world fit in with what we think.

And at a certain point,

Then the world becomes free of us,

Which is a huge gift that we're no longer meddling constantly with everything to try to make everything fit into our template.

We're so at home in the empty and open vastness of our basic nature that we are fully complete.

And then the world becomes an incredible show.

Sometimes it's a freak show.

Sometimes it's a display of the greatest fireworks it could ever be.

Sometimes it's a feast of love.

But the world can be what it wants to be.

And it's so much more joyful.

The world is so much more joyful once we get out of the game of trying to be God and make reality into our image.

So this is a pilgrimage and a real one.

To explore more Somatic teachings with Reggie Ray,

Please visit his Insight Timer profile or the DharmaOcean website at dharmaocean.

Org.

Reviews

🙏always inspiring

🙏

Dr Ray is spot on and so appreciated!

As always, very well explained by Dr Ray.

When I listen to your teachings, I am filled with clarity and hope. Thank you, thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Thank you so much for that really valuable clarification of the pilgrimage of sitting still.

thank you!

Namaste

Beautiful and grounding. Thank you for the enlightening talk.🙏

I can’t put into words how much i appreciate this talk... damn

I was able to feel the truth in the teachings. Thank you.

While a was listening i realised that gentle space of trust and love again. I love this story of pilgrimage in my body and i saw that my life didn't start with my birth trauma but i was already there way before.... I am joy of life💓

“Don’t just do something, sit there!”
Brilliant talk.

Amazing really resonated with me about coming home to yourself constantly and being led by the heart and this deeper place Vs running with the mind and life. A period of stillness had revealed an amazing journey I am following with trust thanks

Wonderful and blissfully true
Thanks

Enjoyed it very much thank you Namaste 🙏🏻

Well, was expecting a meditation but got a wonderful talk instead.

I’m excited to embrace the concept that while I stay still my journey unfolds. Sometimes the less I do the more I do 🙏🏼
Thank you for this wise hopeful concept.
Namaste.

A very inspiring teaching and I love the concept of Pilgrimage. 🙏