Tibet

summer 2025

“What is religion?”

To continue my inquiries into religion, I decided to travel to Tibet to photograph Buddhist pilgrims. Here, the pilgrims practice a devotional gesture called kowtow, in which a pilgrim enters a deep bow (signifying extreme respect and reverence) every three steps. The most fervidly faithful will kowtow throughout the entirety of their pilgrimage — often thousands of miles and take years to complete. At the terminus of the pilgrimage, one can see some pilgrims with bruises on their foreheads, a badge of honor in a sense. I left Tibet with more questions. What drives such fervent religious and physical devotion? Does this suffering equate to heightened levels of spiritual purity? And at last, what is religion? But perhaps the pursuit of such a question is more productive (and possible) than attaining a concrete answer.