Packing for a Dhamma journey is rarely just about clothes and gear. As I prepared for my trip to Sri Lanka, a country I’d never visited but had long felt drawn toward, I found myself caught between craving and renunciation, anticipation and trepidation. What began as a practical task turned into a meditation on apprehension, perfectionism, and presence.
By the time I zipped shut my carry-on suitcase (first time for me, I’ve always used backpacks), I had already travelled miles—emotionally, mentally, even metaphysically. Packing for Sri Lanka, I discovered, was less about logistical readiness than a human longing to get it all just right. The mosquito net became a symbol, if not an obsession. Should I bring one for sleeping? How about for meditating? Both? Neither? I agonised over this for days, toggling between practicality and idealism. The decision—the sleeping net—was ultimately made by the stubborn limits of my baggage (in the end, it was the right decision as I never did need one for meditating outside).
There’s something contemplative about the act of packing. Each item invites reflection: Why this? What if not? What if too much? What if too little? The whole process surfaces a tide of internal murmurs—craving masquerading as preparedness, nervousness dressed as foresight. Even though I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life as a globetrotter, I’m always a little surprised that I still experience these emotions. Fortunately, my Vipassana practice helps me live with them in a balanced way.
Outside my carry-on suitcase and small knapsack, life didn’t let up. I still had a manuscript to finalise, articles to edit and post in the Pariyatti Journal (which I would neglect for the next three months), floors to sweep and mop, and family and friends to hug goodbye. These were not merely pre-departure chores, but ritual acts of closing a chapter in Kory’s book of life. When I finally climbed into the car for the drive to Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, childhood memories arose of goodbyes at bus depots for summer camp, and of butterflies in my stomach (that today I would call by their true name: anxiety). Fortunately, this time my chauffeur was my emotionally aware and supportive wife, Michelle.
The itinerary was massive in scale: Dunham to Montreal, Montreal to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Mumbai, Mumbai to Chennai, Chennai to Colombo. Thirty-four hours. Weaving through continents that, astonishingly, passed not in torment but in a haze of airport smoothies and chais, books and audiobooks, conversations with fellow travellers, naps and meditation, and a restful hybrid practice: sleepatation. Throughout the entire journey, I watched only one film, Operation Finale, a dramatised account of Mossad’s capture of Adolf Eichmann. The film dives into deep psychological territory, wrestling with issues of grief, justice, revenge, restraint, empathy, manipulation and the normalisation of injustice. Eichmann is depicted not as a monster but as bureaucracy in ordinary human form, what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” When Eichmann states, “I was just following orders,” the film challenges us to reflect upon the roles of conformity, obedience, denial, rationalisation, diffusion of responsibility, and moral disengagement within systemic oppression.
A fellow passenger, as it turned out, was watching the same film. Brief glances at each other’s screens became a shared conversation, which unravelled the improbable fact that not only were we both raised in Jewish households in Montreal and worked as teachers, but he had attended a one-day Vipassana course that I had recently conducted! The universe is often more intricately plotted than our most thought-out plans! We ended our transatlantic connection not with a handshake, but with a two-person group sitting, an auspicious sign with which I began my Dhamma pilgrimage!
Minds connect
In the air. Up, deep
In the heart.
Strolling through Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, I noticed how spatial geography maps social hierarchies. The gates for New York, Paris, Frankfurt—wide, gleaming, and outfitted with artisanal cafés, luxury boutiques, modern art, comfortable relaxation areas and play stations for kids; the gates for Mumbai, Mexico City, La Paz—cramped, grungy, bare and uncomfortable. Coincidence, or architectural ethnocentrism?
Jet Lag
Does not discriminate
Airports do.
Around 3:00 am at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport, I reunited, as planned, with Remi, an old Dhamma friend and fellow pilgrim. Our immediate priority did not involve philosophical discussions but breakfast at McDonald’s—spiced veggie burgers and fries (the last time that I had dined at this multinational eatery was in the same spot eight years earlier while also waiting for a flight to Chennai). One needs to be properly jetlagged to eat the tasty, so-called food under the Golden Arches! With bellies full we boarded the plane. While I was happy to join company with my friend, I was glad that we had not been seated side-by-side so that I could return to my sleepatative state rather than spend my limited energy reserve on chatting. We’d have plenty of time for that during our layover in Chennai, and then over the next five weeks (Remi also joined the Off the Beaten Path pilgrimage in Bihar that I led right after our Sri Lankan tour).
Landing in Colombo’s Bandaranaike Airport, I immediately felt the warmth of the climate and the people. After the quickest and friendliest customs procedure that I ever experienced at an airport, we were greeted by Chandana, a friend of a friend who also happened to oversee the airport’s security. Generously offering us his breaktime, Chandana personally escorted us to the baggage claim, money exchange, SIM card acquisition, and Uber hire. We could’ve managed alone, but after nearly three dozen hours of travel, his presence felt like a benediction.
Our first stop was in Nugegoda, a suburb of Colombo, at the home of Ollie and Sudharma. My virtual friendship with Ollie, a Dhamma brother whom I had never met in person, immediately took on the familiarity of lifetimes. The next few days consisted of endless tea, delicious coconut-laced curries and kottu roti, pleasant walks, laughter, meditation, sleepatation, and Dhamma discussions that drifted like incense vapours at a Buddhist shrine. Story books, games of tag, and tickle fights with Ollie and Sudharma’s rambunctious and radiant seven-year-old son kept us grounded in the realest ways.
Although I’ve spent the last thirty years exploring India, and to some degree, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand, this was my first trip to Sri Lanka. Since Sri Lanka and India share historical ties, religious traditions and geographic proximity, I was half-expecting Sri Lanka to be an extension of Ma Bharat’s vast, multiethnic nation, with hundreds of languages and regional identities. However, the island’s distinct characteristics shaped by different colonial histories, ethnic compositions, sociopolitical and military developments, and majority Buddhist identity quickly became apparent to me. Sri Lanka is not a footnote to India, as I had naively assumed. It has its own story—calmer, quieter, wrapped in Buddhist culture and island breezes. Even the traffic speaks differently there. Where Indian roads roar with horn-blasted drama, Sri Lankan traffic seemed to hum in harmony (at least to my naïve, jetlagged eyes). The casual smiles also hinted at a gentler, more contented social rhythm. In the streets people either ignored me, smiled widely, or stared in surprise at the visiting white guy. These stares, however, were often followed by a smile double the size if I offered one first). From my first day to the last, people’s smiles, along with their hearts glowing with devotion to spiritual potential, were my favorite aspects of this Island of Dhamma.
One morning, Remi and I took a sweat-soaked walk around a pond in an urban park, dodging trash and admiring peacocks and parakeets, monkeys and monitor lizards. Nature, in its tenacity, reclaims even the most neglected corners. Later, we met a Belgian bhikkhu whose monastic ochre robes contrasted with the surrounding suburban lay life. The bhikkhu was temporarily residing next door to our hosts. The owners of the house had moved to New Zealand in hopes of a more affluent life, only to find themselves working harder and longer than ever before. Due to the higher cost of living in the West, they were unable to save any money. Social and cultural isolation didn’t make it any easier. For them, the silver, merit-earning lining within their cloud of departure was that a bhikkhu now had a place to stay.
Over coffee and juice (we offered him a package of fair-trade coffee that we had brought from Canada to donate to Western monks whom we expected to meet; he gave us the many juice boxes he had received that morning while on his alms round), he spoke of saṃvega, that spiritual urgency sparked by an insight into the impermanence and brevity of human life. For him, to renounce his lay life was not an escape but a total engagement. His path, like the Buddha’s, began with seeing clearly that sickness, old age, and death are not abstractions but truths demanding attention. The serene confidence and clarity of this Belgian mendicant indicated to me that his quest was less about despair and more about determination.
Dhamma clock has struck
The moment of mindfulness.
Now, not later. Now!
One afternoon, we visited the National Museum where we encountered exquisite ancient Sinhalese Buddhist art and artefacts. The most notable was a thirteenth-century palm leaf Pali manuscript of the Cūḷavagga—a collection of rules, stories, and procedural guidelines from the time of the Buddha—which sat under glass, humming with history.
This document, a section of the Vinaya Piṭaka, the book of monastic discipline, is said to be the oldest Pali manuscript in the world. The Cūḷavagga provides insight into how the early monastic community managed practical, ethical, and organisational matters. It also preserves important historical narratives about the formation of the Buddhist community, especially concerning gender roles, discipline, and community cohesion. To see the seeds of renunciation encoded in delicate palm leaves was to sense the weight of spiritual tradition, preserved not in stone but in ink.
On our final evening in Colombo, Ollie, Remi, and I went to the Kelaniya Temple, a resplendent site believed by locals to have been visited by the Buddha himself (Sri Lankans believe that the Buddha visited their island on three occasions, the third at Kelaniya). Beautiful paintings decorate the temple’s inner walls, detailing stories from the Buddha’s life, the arrival of Emperor Asoka’s children—the arahants Mahinda and Saṅghamitta, and other important historical events from the Island’s Buddhist history.
The temple grounds glowed with oil lamps, wax candles and electric lights, and we found ourselves alone under the branches of a descendant of the Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura (which, in turn, grew from a cutting of the original Bodhi Tree in Bodhgayā). The majestic tree is protected from the continuous stream of pilgrims and tourists who wish to leave it offerings, a number of which can be harmful (oil lamps, for instance, might cause heat damage; offerings of water and milk sometimes oversaturate or contaminate the soil and cause the roots to rot; pile-ups of flowers foster mold and attract rodents and insects).
Seeing us Westerners dressed in lungyis and exhibiting an aura of awe and reverence, and with no material offerings in our hands that would be left as litter, the monk gatekeeper, who seemed equal parts security guard and spiritual custodian, waved us into the inner sanctum. Feeling immensely privileged to be the sole visitors among the crowds, we silently and reverently circumambulated the regal tree. Bowing to the bhikkhu attendant on our way out of the protected area, we went next to the illuminated stupā to find a quiet spot to meditate. When our hour was over, we continued to sit there with open eyes watching the flow of pilgrims circumambulate the pagoda, praying at the numerous shrines, meditating in some corner as we just had, or simply hanging out, having a good time with family or friends. The borders between the sacred and profane are blurred and permeable.
Then, in typical travel fashion, the sacred gave way to the surreal. Feeling a little hungry, Ollie wanted to take us to eat at a nearby Indian Tamil vegetarian restaurant. Descending the steps leading away from the temple, we found ourselves in the middle of a street parade—elephants, whip-crackers, dancers, blaring drums and horns. To get to the restaurant, we had to walk alongside the performers for about 300 metres and then make a quick dash through the parade and across the road. The three foreigners dressed in lungyis that flapped as they ran became a part of the show. The crowd, the performers, and even the police serving as security, laughed and cheered us accidental jesters on.
Rather than feeling shy or embarrassed—OK, just a little—the warmth of the people put me at ease. Even amidst the sweat and clamour of the street parade—the pounding drums, the swirling colours, and voices rising in unison, something shimmered, a sudden sympathetic joy and temporary connection. And then, as quickly as it arose, it passed away, and we continued onward to our destination that offered samosas and masala dosas. A perfect ending to the first leg of our Sri Lankan pilgrimage.
Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a five-part series.
Kory
Goldberg