Reflections of my spiritual adventure

Fall of 2024

My 6 weeks of travels have come to an end. In fact, I see it more like a beginning because, for me, everything is a beginning with no end.

As I sit here and reflect about the places I stayed in like a Monastery in Nepal and the places that I was able to visit in Nepal and Thailand it all comes down to one precious thing for me as usual when I travel and that is the connections that I made along the way with friends, staff members, family, animals, locals, guides, Monks, teachers, children, Nuns, elephants, nature and more. Yes, of course it was very enriching and fascinating visiting many World Heritage sites along the way and listening to stories and learning about history. However, for me, it’s about the stories that we shared together while being in other people’s homes, streets, dog shelter, temples, Elephant Sanctuary etc. that I felt the most loving kindness and compassion. For me, it’s about sharing, listening and learning from one another. It`s also about being in nature and learning from nature while spending some time in silence to reflect and contemplate about our lives. It`s about giving love to people and animals in the streets that are alone while we are comfortable in our lives and not just once a year but all the time. Sometimes it’s the little things that we do every single day that have the greatest impact in other people`s lives. We don`t need to talk or convince ourselves and others about how spiritual we are, we just have to lead by example everyday in the best that we can. We are all spiritual. We just have to go within to find it.

I’m sure those who followed me have seen how much I fell totally in love with Nepal.

Being invited to stay at the monastery for the first week in Nepal was a complete humbling experience. The Nuns/Monks were truly smart, funny and loving. Every morning we were offered to witness magnificent pujas with tea. The nuns and children chanted for us, offering us many blessings, and everyday they made us a wonderful breakfast, lunch and dinner. They allowed us to live among them and have us take it all in. So much love.

During this trip, I also became an observer, and things became so clear to me. As we all know, we can learn a lot simply by being mindful, observing people and everything around you. It’s enriching when we look outside ourselves and drop the “I, me, my and mine” and learn about others through their eyes and their stories. So many people spend time together and yet, they know nothing about the other person because they spend so much time talking and talking instead of truly sharing with each other.

Even though Kathmandu city is chaotic, old, falling apart, rubble, and dust everywhere, when you open your heart and eyes and look beyond the chaos or material things, what did I see? What did I feel? I saw and felt love, light, compassion, and beauty everywhere. The simplicity, mindfulness, and rawness of the people were overwhelmingly beautiful. I felt like I was home, completely losing all sense of time. Many of the people of Nepal are devoted to spirituality, peace, love, and compassion. They focus on unity, not separation like many other parts of the world. You ask, how can people be so fulfilled and happy when there is so much poverty and suffering around the world, but they are. We just have to look at the huge smiles on the children’s faces. They are happy, they are together. They practice gratitude and focus on what really matters in life. They consume less, so much less. They are disconnected with everything that doesn’t matter and yet, connected with everything that does. They are in service to people, to each other and when we are in service, life becomes more meaningful and fulfilling. When we live in simplicity, we become richer with love which is something that no one can take away from you in a world where everything else is impermanent. It’s about connection and dissolving the belief that we are superior to anyone else in this world.

While in Nepal, there was also a celebration of Happy Kukur Tihar (Kukur Puja)! The festival that celebrates dogs. We were invited to visit this amazing dog shelter to help celebrate this special day and play with the dogs. They needed much love and yet they gave us so much love without any hesitation, pure unconditional love. Community Dog Welfare Center in Kathmandu is run by Kate and Doug from the UK, two lovely souls. We are thankful to them for having invited us to celebrate this special festival. It’s amazing all the work that they and their community do to help all these street dogs. They are so compassionate and selfless. I hope that many more people will keep on donating to their shelter in order to help them continue to provide such care and love.

Visiting Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha was also a very humbling experience and the stories and history are pretty fascinating. We also had the pleasure to assist a lecture from a Monk at Rajakiya Buddha Vihar monastery including a question and answer period. In summary, although there are other essential qualities, he shared these 4 essentials of being a spiritual person:

1. Practicing Loving Kindness
2. Compassion
3. Rejoicing the happiness and success of others

Being kind and compassionate is not only for our family or only those we choose, it`s for everyone. It`s for those around us and for every child in this world. It`s even for those who have hurt us, we can forgive, let go and still love them as a human being from afar. It’s also about cultivating emotional intelligence, the ability to not compare and take other peoples perspectives into account while not being blinded by what we are feeling at the moment.

4. Obtaining equanimity (when no praise or criticism will affect you)

I`m still working everyday on the number 4 which is not so easy to obtain in today`s world where people are so incredibly critical. We are not perfect, however, what’s important is that we strive for it everyday with good intentions.

We also had the opportunity to plant baby trees in our names, for friends and family at the Buddha Peace Park, Nagarkot in the Himalayas which was a pretty special day for all of us. This was another highlight of this trip.

Later, we had the honor of meeting Ani Chöying Drolma. She is a Buddhist nun of Tibetan origin and a musician. She is also the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador to Nepal since 2014. Ani invited us to her home while she and her musicians were having rehearsals for their next concert starting in the new year. She made the time to make us tea, sang a few songs for us, answered questions, shared her story and signed our books. She is truly an embodiment of pure kindness and love who has dedicated herself to the streets of Kathmandu, helping the homeless who are also challenged with mental health. This woman is truly an inspiration. Her inspiring personal story and journey deeply touched me.

The Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand was also a highlight for me. Imagine being surrounded by these beautiful majestic creatures that were abused by humans (in the tourism industry) since childhood for many years until they were rescued by beautiful human beings. Today, these gentle giants are free to live the rest of their lives in such a peaceful and loving environment. No matter what happened to them in the past, today, they are happy, joyous, and loving even towards us humans. I just fell in love with them and spent a few days observing, walking alongside, feeding, and hugging them which was truly magical. They never made me feel small. In fact, they made me feel like I was the same size as them! Hahaha. The best part for me was when I walked closely with one of them, this elephant kept wanting to snuggle with me, wrapping her trunk around me in order to get into my banana bag. It was like she was human, and I completely forgot how big she was next to me. I will never forget her playfulness, trust, and love that she had in me. At the sanctuary, we were able to meet about 13 out of 123 elephant rescues and one baby that was recently rescued. We were grateful to meet these elephants since the sanctuary is still closed while cleaning up following their last catastrophic flooding that happened just before we arrived. We didn’t know at the time what we were arriving to but we were willing and ready to just volunteer with the clean up. Sadly we heard that they had lost 3 elephants during the flooding. We were so touched how this Sanctuary accommodated and took such good care of us. This is an experience that I will never forget. We learned so much from these caretakers and we hope that in the future their government will change their laws. I do hope to be back one day soon, volunteer again and hang out these wonderful friends. In the meantime, we can keep on donating.

This trip reconfirmed to me that everything and every answer is within us, not outside of us. We just have to slow down, connect with nature and the source (it doesn’t matter what you call it), let go, and just listen, BE and don’t try to become anything. We are so much more than our names, status, titles, and jobs.

When I was in my early 20s, after one of my first flights working as a flight attendant, someone asked me, “What did you learn during your layover? My answer is the same today in my 50s. I learned that no matter where we live or who we are, we are the same. We are humans disguised in different – colorful costumes, cultures, customs, performing different rituals and eating different cuisines. The beauty of it all is how every culture loves to share with others if we are open to receive. I have also learned along the way that we own nothing and everything is impermanent for all of us. It doesn’t matter who we are, what your status is or where we live.

When we meet human beings who live in poverty and/or who have suffered great suffering and still they devote themselves to spreading love, joy, and compassion, it’s remarkable, and it puts so many things into perceptive. It makes us humble, and we lose all the excuses and we stop pointing fingers at others.

We must pray, march, fight and stand for peace and compassion for one another and not war, hate, division, and choosing who should get compassion and who shouldn’t. How can we give compassion to one child and wish death to another? It doesn’t make sense. We have lost our ways and must find ways to reconnect. Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

The way so many people are on social media today hiding behind their computers, spreading hate all around us is overwhelmingly sad. They condemn and treat people all guilty until proven innocent. They don’t realize how damaging their words are to themselves and to other human beings. But when you go out there and meet people face to face, you see things differently and more humanly and your heart expands.

We can change ourselves and choose to create a rippling effect of loving kindness and peace, or we can create a rippling effect of greed, hate and division. When we reflect on this, what world do we want to live in? How do we want to leave this world behind? When we are connected, the answers are simple and clear. Behind every organization, group, or community, there are humans. Each and every one of us is responsible and we should hold people individually accountable for their actions and not generalize or stereotype because this hurts people. We all have a choice to be part of the destruction or part of the creation and creation comes in many different forms.

And finally, I also realized during this trip while I spent some time in silence, that I have many stories (from my early travels until now), so who knows, maybe I will write them down some day.

Every time I travel, I feel like myself again. Every time I return from my travels, I become more and more humble and filled with so much gratitude. In the end, what we experience when traveling depends on how open and kind our hearts are to all and not just our own entourage.

Thank you to our beautiful teacher who took one year to plan this adventure for us and to our lovely tour guide in Nepal. Without them, the experience would not have been the same.

May the holiday season bring much reflection to all of us.

~ Lina