Even the remote mountain monasteries have broadened their access to lay visitors. Nowadays monastic and lay Buddhists have more occasions to meet than before and the current intensification of their relationships brings important redefinitions of their respective identities.

I focus on a one-week retreat for laity in a Buddhist monastery dedicated to meditation. This case study examines the ambiguous goal of this retreat programme that combined two aims: initiating lay practitioners to the monastic lifestyle and the practice of kanhwa son meditation; and establishing a group of lay supporters affiliated to the temple. This temporary monastic experience was directed towards an intense socialisation of the participants to the norms and values of an ascetic lifestyle, blurring some aspects of the border between lay and monastic practices of Buddhism. However, this paper suggests that this transitory rapprochement contributed to both challenge and strengthen the distinction between the renouncers (ch’ulga) and the householders (chaega).

Nakatsukasa did not do the pilgrimage just once but kept going around the island on a journey lasting some fifty-six years until his death in 1922. In this time he completed 280 pilgrimage circuits of Shikoku and left the island just twice.

Many Japanese Buddhists become “addicted” to the beautiful life of the pilgrimage circuit.

See also the NBN interview about the book.

Templestay has become popular among Koreans struggling to cope with an ever more competitive and precarious social and economic environment.

Drawing on ethnographic research and an examination of the history, statistics, marketing, and program content of Templestay, this article challenges the polarized view that posits socially engaged Buddhism as the opposite of traditional monastic Buddhism and suggests that Templestay facilitates Buddhism’s engagement with the prevailing psychological predicament of society.

The Peak’s pluralism should not be read as pure romanticism. Some speak of the Peak as uniquely harmonious, but in reality it operates like any other human space, with continual negotiations and alliances among groups evolving over time. At present, the Peak is controlled by Buddhists, who make some accommodations for pilgrims of other religions, but still place many restrictions over the summit. Religious tensions can exist, as do divisions between Sinhala and Tamil ethno-linguistic groups. Nevertheless, the mountain can also encourage cooperation. The difficulty of the climb is a source of solidarity among strangers

A 97-slide Prezi presentation showing what it’s like to climb Sri Lanka’s most famous mountain along with teaching materials and a short bibliography of further resources.

Single embodiment of all the buddhas’ compassion,
Lotus King, chief of all sky-faring ḍākas and ḍākinīs,
Miraculously born nirmāṇakāya, untainted by a womb —
To this great eternal bearer of the lotus, I bow down!

In this devotional poem, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö praises Tso Pema (Lotus Lake), a sacred site in Rewalsar, India, associated with Guru Padmasambhava. The poem extols the miraculous transformation of a funeral pyre into a lotus-filled lake and praises Padmasambhava’s enlightened qualities and compassionate activities

There are no deliberate austerities or penances associated with such journeys; over-crowded buses or trucks seemingly without springs are common modes of transport in Northeastern Thailand. One informant stated that if people took a journey solely to make merit somewhere, then the trip would be no fun. However, if people went traveling purely for their own pleasure, with no planned stops at holy shrines, then merit would not be obtained.

An ethnographic investigation of pilgrimage in Thailand focusing on the Wat Phrathat Phanom Stupa in Isaan.

Bashō was a sensitive poet whose values were firmly founded in Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist thought. Bashō, although having seriously studied Zen, was never a monk belonging to a monastery, but he often dressed as a priest and often stayed at temples and shrines.

Matsuo Bashō was a 17th-century, Edo poet and a true master of the Haiku form. His Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Interior) is one of the most celebrated, religious travelogues ever written.

It is the human need to express devotion to and adoration of the Buddha and his teaching that manifests itself in the act of building pagodas and in making ceremonial offerings before shrines.

This illustrated book is a journey through Burma’s legendary and renowned pagodas and other famous places, sharing the myths and stories tied to each site—legends that are deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of every Burmese.

It is everywhere enclosed by the lofty peaks of the Buddha’s Dhamma

This travel guide is designed for Buddhists or anyone interested in Buddhism visiting Sri Lanka. It offers insights into archaeological facts, art history, and legends, while also providing practical advice, maps, and illustrations.

The essay connects the field of Buddhist studies to a larger conversation in the field of global education, arguing that Buddhist studies travel courses must interrogate concepts of global citizenship, address the legacies of colonialism, and teach the principles of ethical travel, in addition to introducing students to the living traditions of global Buddhism.

Ten weeks after the stay, meditation retreats and vacations including meditation were associated with greater increases in mindfulness, lower levels of fatigue, and higher levels of well-being than an “ordinary” vacation during which meditation was not practiced.

… four inspiring places that a faithful gentleman should go to see

… possessing eight qualities, a bhikkhu is worthy of going on a mission

… once one village area had set up a pilgrimage route, it was not long before neighbouring communities did the same

On the mimetic nature of one particular Japanese, religious practice.

As a sacred site for pilgrimage, Bodhgayā became even more prominent from the sixth and seventh centuries onward, when the rebuilding of the Mahābodhi Temple coincided with the installation of a Buddha statue with the earth-touching gesture, symbolic of the Buddha’s calling upon the earth to bear witness to his victory over evil. Miracles enshroud the creation of the image itself, and later it became a famous icon widely copied throughout the Buddhist world.

This essay investigates the image’s origins and its dissemination to China. Further, it argues that the legends surrounding the image that developed in China contributed to Chinese pilgrims visiting India to pay homage to the site and the sacred statue, and to seek experiences of the numinous and validation of their piety. In turn they brought replicas of the statue back to China, contributing to the spread of the image type. Pilgrims’ accounts of miracle-performing images and their depictions in visual forms affirm, to the pious, the efficacy of the divinities, not seen as separate from their material forms

The Kumano shrines were among the most popular pilgrimage sites of medieval Japan, drawing devotees across geographic, sectarian, class, and gender barriers. Yet this pilgrimage, which is often seen as a paradigmatic and formative example of Japanese popular religion, was instituted by the country’s ruling elite as an elaborate ritual of state.

Their power—contrary to common sense—originated from their miniature size and intentional rejection of their sacred prototype. Through these miniatures, the banal ritual of pagoda circumambulation was transformed into an imaginary journey to the distant holy land, which was believed to be more efficacious and meritorious than an actual pilgrimage, and the prairie of northeast China was turned into the most sacred place in the Buddhist world.

After the Buddha’s awakening he spent seven weeks at Uruvelā, the modern Bodh Gaya, and during the second week he sat gazing at the Bodhi Tree without blinking. In time, a shrine called the Animisa Cetiya, in English the Shrine of Steadfast Gaze or sometimes the Unblinking Shrine, came to be built on this site and became one of the seven sacred locations at Bodh Gaya.

Some people almost faint trying to climb up the mountain where I live.

A prose translation of Arahant Mahā Kassapa’s verses in praise of his auster home, Gurpa Hill.

… the first of the four major holy places of Buddhism, being where the person who was to become the Buddha was born.

A short history of Lumbini.

‘Shikoku illness’ is a common term that people use to describe a sense of addiction to the pilgrimage

Three steps, one bow: that was how they made their pilgrimage. […] an unadorned account of an authentic spiritual journey.

A monk and novice write letters to their teacher as they prostrate their way up the California coast.

Note: this Second Edition is entitled Highway Dharma Letters: Two Buddhist Pilgrims Write to Their Teacher.

Like an object circling the sun, the visitor senses she is within the gravitational pull of a powerful entity.

An analysis of the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum’s immense Buddha statue and its rich dàochǎng 道場: a bodhimaṇḍala for the (postmodern) human realm.

‘Mearcstapa’ meant ‘border-walker’ […] you’re between the air and the water, you’re apart from other people, you’re on this separate journey […but] what are you actually accomplishing on these trips?

Robin Pecknold asks himself what he gains from sailing.

… tourism is a highly political phenomenon, the implications of which have been only rarely perceived and almost nowhere fully understood. […] If tourism policy does not integrate or anticipate its political component, then policies and the people affected by them will suffer.

A monograph to help tourism development planners to avoid disasters like Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2012 “Maitreya” debacle. If only he had read this book!

On every horizon there were soaring peaks.

The Nandamula Cave was said to be somewhere on Nanda Pabbata, now named Nandadevi, which at 7,434 m (24,390 ft.) is India’s second highest mountain.

In contrast to the monastic emphasis at Ajanta, Aurangabad seems to have been more open to laity, emerging as a religious sanctuary serving primarily the nonordained

The fascinating archeology and proposed history of the Aurangabad caves: a tourist site for lay Buddhists even in ancient times.

Even today it has been estimated that nearly half the population of India defecate in the open, a major cause of […] water born disease.

… there are at least three major orientations within Sinhalese religion: 1) Bodh Gaya, commemorating the enlightenment experience; 2) Kataragama, where access to transformative “this-worldly” sacral power is sought; and 3) Kandy, where religion legitimates a people’s cultural and political past and present through civil ceremony

What all three pilgrimages have in common is functional in nature: the need to cope with various manifestations of dukkha

… a history of the future of the Maitreya Project 2.0, a non-existent statue that nonetheless has touched many lives around the world, for better and for worse

This man is one of those who have seldom been seen from ancient times to the present. Since the Great Doctrine flowed on to the East there has been no one to be compared with Hien in his forgetfulness of self and search for the Law.

The extraordinary first-hand account of Buddhism in South Asia during the fifth century and of one monk’s journey to bring the true Buddhist texts back to China.

Part 1: Rude Awakenings and Part 2: Great Patient One are alao available on the Forest Sangha website and the AudioBook is available courtesy of PodBean.

Tudong in Britain had begun.

An account of Ajahn Amaro’s months-long walk across England in the summer of 1982.

Over 15,000 photographs of Buddhist archeological sites, pilgrimage centres, and temples in SE Asia, as well as Videos, Maps, Posters, etc.

… the modern pilgrim needs to have some idea about the religious, historical and archaeological background of each of the sacred places

This book provides a thorough account of the history behind the sacred sites of Buddhist India, from ancient to modern times.

Regardless of the historical reality, we could at least observe, on the textual level, that qíufǎ (求法 = the search of Dharma) represents the main objective for [these early] Chinese pilgrims.

For the intending pilgrim, it is imperative to understand that a pilgrimage is essentially a spiritual journey in veneration of the Blessed One. This act of veneration purifies one’s thoughts, speech and action and through it, many noble qualities can be developed.

A famous, contemporary pilgrim shares his understanding and love of the practice.

… conservation by neglect and the slow rate of urbanization has been a virtue in these areas and has helped to preserve many of these ancient Buddhist sites

… building spectacular ecumenical leisure sites often runs into problems

A clear-eyed but sympathetic analysis of the pervasive construction of Buddhist tourist attractions in Asia, what they accomplish and don’t.

Traditional Indian geography was always a strange amalgam of a few facts and a lot of fiction. But facts there are.

A companion book for anyone traveling to Mount Kailash, or just curious about the intersection of sacred and scientific geography in the Himalayas.

The Buddha’s movements northwards were of course limited by the then impenetrable jungles of the Himalayan foothills and it is unlikely that he ever went further south than the southern edge of the Ganges watershed. Still, this would mean that his wanderings covered an area roughly equivalent to 200,000 square kilometres, a huge area by any standards.

A short introduction to the territory covered by the Buddha’s wanderings.

I, too, am a bhikkhuni. The bhikkhuni sangha did not perish, but long ago spread from here to China

While tourism does disrupt, it is not at odds with larger Buddhist goals to spread the Dharma.

A chat about the interaction between emplaced Buddhism and mobile capitalism in contemporary Asia based on the interviewee’s new editted volume on the subject.

Since the footprints of the Buddha are understood to represent the physical presence of the historical Buddha, they are especially venerated in such Theravāda Buddhist countries as Sri Lanka and Thailand, although they also exist in other Buddhist countries.

… valuable material for the contemplation of the transit of ideas between South Asia and Korea

A Chinese monk visits medieval Sri Lanka and perhaps influences Korean sculpture, challenging our notions of nationalized Buddhisms.