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Departing on
pilgrimage
The
New Oxford Dictionary defines the term ‘departure’ as: the action of leaving,
typically to start a journey. The term ‘departure’ is derived from the Latin dispertire
‘to divide’, its original sense being ‘to separate’, also ‘to take leave of
each other’, hence ‘to go away’. The
pilgrim’s home (for home read: sanctuary),
that is to say, her initial state, consists of her current identity (i.e. as
address) self-presenting as a whole (i.e. as a unit or quantum of) reality. Her
home (i.e. her address as particularly shaped reality) has begun to decay
(i.e. to become fuzzy and unreal) because of identity repetition and energy
loss resulting from the effort expended to keep the home/identity active,
therefore real. Energy depletion (read: en-darkenment (i.e. depression), as
opposite to enlightenment
(i.e. elation)) results in a ‘down’ or ‘low’ (energy or capacity) state,
interpreted by the pilgrim as unhappiness (or depression). Pilgrimage begins
when an energy depression trigger threshold is reached, in other words, ‘the
rat leaves the already sinking ship’. Close
inspection (that is to say, probing) of the home (i.e. of an identifiable
reality) reveals that is not a single identifiable unit but a vast cluster of
identity bits (all operating as units or wholes) that function together (and
experienced within the limited bandwidth of everyday consciousness) as a
single whole. For
the pilgrim, departure means the letting go (involuntarily or voluntarily) of
one or more bits of her identity cluster; in short, the slimming down or
downsizing (hence reduction, meaning loss) of her identity and of her mass
(and which provides realness). The immediate effect of involuntary downsizing
is an increase in flexibility (i.e. speed); this upgrades the capacity to
make contact and via it tank up on energy. The immediate affect of voluntary
downsizing (i.e. of getting rid of the fat) is the recovery of energy (or
capacity), namely the energy previously invested in generating and attaching
(i.e. storing) the now hived off identity bits. Within everyday consciousness
(hence as projected and interpreted on the self monitoring screen), the
energy surge (the key survival indicator monitored by the Core Pilgrimage) resulting from ‘letting
go’, i.e. departure (hence from voluntary withdrawal, for instance as in
withdrawal (read: relaxation, or quietude) meditation praxis), is experienced
as happiness, joy, even exultation, in other words as the joy of being ‘freed
or liberated from’. It
follows that voluntary ‘leaving home’, i.e. departure on pilgrimage, is a
joyful experience, and that enforced leaving home is sorrowful. All
homes (all units of clusters) are temporary because the clusters (for instance
molecules or atoms) that create them as momentary stable states (i.e. as
sliced moments) are dynamic. Hardly has a home been created than it begins to
disintegrate.* Consequently, pilgrimage is inevitable (in fact the norm)
since the pilgrim quickly experiences the home disintegrating around and
beneath her. That drives her forth to reach (in fact) create a new home
(sanctuary). In
short, the pilgrim departs of necessity, strives to reach her goal (i.e.
sanctuary) of necessity, and reaches (in fact creates) her goal (i.e. her new
and real (hence true) self as sanctuary) of necessity. If she fails to do
what is necessary, thereby ‘proving’ her fitness, she is eliminated. The
voluntary pilgrim departs in anticipation of what a little later on will become
a necessity. * … and
disintegration hurts, that is to say, if one clings to or craves for that which is
disintegrating. This was the Buddha’s
insight, i.e. his samma-sambodhi
and which drove him to invent a philosophy (i.e. dhamma) and a praxis of hurt
(i.e. suffering, Pali: dukkha) avoidance and evasion. |