Thread by @tasshinfogleman

as you may have heard, i’m back from pilgrimage! 🚶‍♂️ i made it back safely. this is an important spiritual practice for me, and several people have expressed interest in learning more, so I’ll share it with those and others who might be interested or inspired. 🧵

i went on pilgrimage in Vermont in 2015 for about four days. at the time, i was living at the monastery in Vermont, and for one month, rather than our usual meditation retreat, everyone had the choice of doing a vision quest, a solo meditation retreat, or a pilgrimage.

i chose a pilgrimage. partly because - frankly - it seemed Least Scary to me. but also because i was inspired by my teacher Soryu Forall’s accounts of his own pilgrimages, and by Peace Pilgrim, who Forall often talks about.

Peace Pilgrim was an American spiritual teacher in the last century, who spent the last several decades of her life on foot, walking for peace. her vow: I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace; walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.

if you want to read about Peace, you can get a free copy of her book- not just digitally, but they will actually mail you a copy: peacepilgrim.org

note: if you have disposable income, consider buying your copy or donating enough to cover someone else’s!

since I now live in California, I thought that living here would be a good opportunity to do another pilgrimage.

for me, pilgrimage is a unique complement to the meditation retreats that i regularly go on. a pilgrimage is about cultivating trust.

trust is the opposite of rushing. trust is the opposite of hesitating. trust is the opposite of planning. that means that (for me) it isn’t about going to a particular place or holy site. you can practice a pilgrimage anywhere (within reason).

come to a fork in the road, and have to decide whether to go left or right. have to make a decision. trust your instincts.

you meet someone, and you feel inclined to talk to them. trust that.

you meet someone else, and you notice you don’t want to talk to them. is that your instincts saying this person is dangerous? if so, trust that.

or, are you rushing, avoiding the present moment? in that case, slow down, stop to chat with this person.

trust is about our most basic, primal level of existing and relating. on pilgrimage, you have to trust that there will be a place to sleep, that there will be food to eat; that it won’t rain, or that there will be shelter, or that the rain is for the best somehow anyway.

on that primal level, deep fears will come up. fears for your life. in the face of that, you have to trust that you won’t die, whether from natural causes or otherwise. trust you won’t get robbed or murdered. trust that people are basically good.

trust is the belief that this is the perfect experience. this is the perfect experience to be having, whatever it is.

this kind of trust isn’t contrary to common sense. it’s not a permission to be stupid. it’s more fundamental than that.

here’s a practical way you have to trust: you want to carry as little as possible, because you have to carry it all yourself. Peace carried very, very little: allegedly only a pen, a comb, a toothbrush, and a map. i have not reached that level of trust 😂

on my first pilgrimage, i carried a bag with clothes, toiletries, a sleeping bag, mat, and that was about it. this time, i just had... a tarp... for sleeping because the sleeping bag + mat i had handy wouldn’t fit in the bags i had available.

that was a bit extreme on the trust spectrum. can’t say i’d recommend it. it was really cold. towards the end of my trip, someone gave me a sleeping bag that is more portable than my other one at the monastery.

after i went on my first pilgrimage, i realized that trust is necessary in meditation as well. somehow it had been difficult for me to notice that before.

now that i’ve practiced the skill of trusting, it’s easier for me to trust on the meditation cushion, too. trust that that no effort is wasted; trust that i don’t need to know how to meditate, i can discover which direction to go in.

part of the reason i want to share this thread is that, this time around, it was really obvious that there isn’t much understanding of pilgrimage in our country.

if i was really 100% trusting, by my own standards, i wouldn’t bring or buy food. i would trust that others would provide. but on both pilgrimages i’ve gone on, i’ve purchased most of my food. sometimes people have let me stay with them or on their property.

in my assessment, it’s not reasonable to expect that the average american i haven’t met before will offer or give me, a pilgrim, a wanderer, food or shelter. some people will, of course. people have done that for me. but the default is that they won’t.

the exception is that if i meet someone i already know, who already trusts me, they are always quite generous. arguably, this proves the rule, but i’m very grateful for the generosity these people have shown me.

cultures older and/or less fortunate than our own have been quite clear about the importance of caring for strangers, wanderers, and the less fortunate. we have work to do, America.

a pilgrimage is, above all, an adventure. a quest. a journey. nothing like breaking routine, scene + setting to insert spice into life.

i’d share some of my adventures, but I think that if I did, they’d sound sort of weird and/or empty and/or click-baity. they’re also, ultimately, personal. i’d rather share them privately, for now at least. but if we know each other, feel free to ask me about them.

when this last pilgrimage ended, it ended somewhat abruptly. there wasn’t a clear conclusion, moral, or lesson. it reminds me of a novel i read once: an adventure story, which was an exciting read but didn’t completely make sense or have a strong conclusion.

in that story, and on pilgrimage, exciting things keep happening and you don’t know why or where it’s going. just enjoy the show. somehow, for reasons you know not, it’s the perfect experience for you to be having.