Geri Larkin's open and honest account of the difficulties in her 30-day pilgrimage to South Korea is a fine piece of devotional literature. Here's a passage on the spiritual practice of being present.
"A new world view began to take hold of my brain: that any situation was survivable if I stayed right smack in the middle of it, letting everything else go. And every day provided ample opportunities to practice being in the middle of situations. On a bus to the city of Taegu, I vaguely remembered a dharma talk (or maybe it was an essay) by a wonderful teacher, Joan Halifax, that described enlightenment as the capacity to really be with both suffering and joy, directly and in an unmediated way. That was the job at hand — to simply be with the suffering and the joy. When we had to wait here or there for Sunim, I just waited: sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. Sometimes long enough to memorize the exact position of each pebble on the ground in front of my feet. 'Just this, just this, just this,' became my mantra, the only thinking allowed.
"Staying with whatever was happening 'right now' made each experience deeper and sweeter. Trees, plants, stoves, rocks, buildings, and people started to take on auras: halos of soft color. Smells were stronger. I even sensed different vibrations in different places and different vibrations inside of me. Sometimes my whole inside was downright buzzy. 'Just this' softened the homesickness over time. It protected what little patience was left hiding in the cells of my exhausted body."
