The intention is to train one's mind toward the path and realization of enlightenment. Whereas our intellects can make leaps and bounds, understanding the realization that great teachers demonstrate, our bodies and deep habitual patterning are harder to change. By repeatedly enacting one's intentions with the body it is thought that at the deepest levels of our being we can slowly effect change and progress toward outer goals. By embodying the truths we believe, we cause them to take root in our being. Thus, prostration enacts deep respect for the earth and all beings, and expresses a humility and intent to serve.
Prayer brings the voice into that enactment.
Circumnambulation is a walking meditation that generates great intention, imbedding it in the place. These practices are done over and over again throughout a pilgrimage. The goals of pilgrimage in Tibet are most often places where great yogis and spiritual practitioners meditated and accomplished their realizations. The place and the practice become inter- twined in the generation of a field or matrix. These means that the original story of the great yogi who meditated there attracts centuries of other meditators.