Zuisei Goddard draws on the life of the Buddha to illustrate the six stages of pilgrimage—the call, homeleaving, the journey, contemplation, encounter, return.

Pilgrimage is both an inner and outer journey; it is travel into the unknown for the purpose of knowing ourselves intimately and drawing closer to our understanding of the divine. It is realizing that at the end of a long sojourn, we return to the home that we never actually left.