VIPASSANA MEDITATION : A SORT OF TRAVELOGUE FROM RAPA NUI TO HAVANA TO KUALA LUMPUR TO COCHIN TO MUSCAT, OMAN . THANK YOU

How Vipassana Meditation Entered My Worldview

A Personal History

Sometimes a teacher enters our life without either of us knowing that a lesson has begun.

A Chance Encounter on Rapa Nui

Who has not heard of Easter Island and its legendary moai?

Because of the island’s extreme isolation, getting there is not easy. I have been fortunate enough to visit four times since 2003, and over the years I have made friends with several Rapa Nui families.

The Japanese have long been fascinated by Rapa Nui, and Japan has played an important role in the restoration and preservation of the moai.

On one visit, I was fortunate to stay in the home of a local guide and his Rapa Nui wife, Fatima. We set out in his van to see, feel, and learn the history of the island—a history that, for him, was not something learned from a book but something known by heart.

The ceremonial stone platforms on which many of the moai stand are called ahu. They are sacred, and visitors are not supposed to step on them.

Despite the signs, I would still see tourists climbing onto the ahu, especially the more isolated ones.

One day I saw a young Japanese woman, a daypack on her back, wandering around an ahu. I hurried over and said in English:

“Please, these platforms are sacred. Please don’t climb on them.”

Embarrassed, she quickly climbed down. Then she said to me:

“If you want, you can speak Spanish to me.”

I was amazed. Here was a young woman with no English and only rudimentary Spanish, travelling alone around the world. She told me she was heading to Europe and then to India.

One of the things she hoped to do in India was Vipassana meditation.

I had heard Vipassana mentioned before in Myanmar and Cambodia, but this chance encounter on a remote island in the Pacific brought it into sharper focus for me.

And so, quite unexpectedly, Vipassana entered my world.

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From Rapa Nui to S. N. Goenka

My curiosity deepened through the writings and talks of Yuval Noah Harari. He has spoken often about the importance of Vipassana in his life and how meditation became a regular part of it.

Harari was introduced to Vipassana in the tradition of S. N. Goenka, a Burmese-born teacher of Indian descent who had himself learned the practice in Burma.

Whenever I have the opportunity, I like to listen to Goenka’s short introduction to Anapana—the practice of observing the natural breath. It takes only about ten minutes, yet it offers a remarkably simple way of returning attention to the present.

More recently I came across William Hart’s The Art of Living, based on Vipassana meditation as taught by Goenka.

Some of what follows was prompted by that book, by Goenka’s teaching, and by a Blinkist summary I listened to. I have woven those ideas together with my own reflections and experiences.

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Philosophy Must Be Lived

No amount of study can replace practical experience.

This, for me, is one of the most important lessons of Buddhism. Teachings become meaningful only when they are lived.

The same is true of yoga. If we perform the postures without understanding anything of the philosophy behind them, yoga can become little more than stretching.

Buddhist and yogic thought share profound concerns: the nature of the mind, suffering, attachment, awareness and liberation. They emerged from the same broad Indian intellectual world, although the Buddha and Patanjali did not live at the same time.

For me, the central lesson is simple:

Philosophy becomes useful only through practice.

The practice is here and now—being aware of what is happening in this moment. In this regard, I often think of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and his insistence on returning to the present.

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If You Have a Faith, Live It

I have often encountered people who describe themselves as spiritual or religious while allowing that identity to remain separate from the way they actually live.

A faith or philosophy has meaning only when it shapes our conduct.

If you have a faith, live it. Do not measure a life only by money, status or achievement. Measure it also by kindness toward others.

A Qatari friend of mine, Ahmed, once said something that has remained with me:

“Do not be impressed by superficial things such as money, titles or degrees. Be impressed by kindness, empathy, generosity, humility and integrity.”

Those words have stayed with me.

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What Am I Without My Labels?

When I was a junior doctor in Melbourne, I began thinking about the attachments from which I wanted to free myself.

I even wrote them down.

First came country and nationality—the strange importance we attach to a passport, even to its colour.

Next came profession.

“I am a doctor” is an easy identity to adopt. But medicine is what I do; it is not the entirety of what I am.

Then came attachment to the body: skin, gender, appearance and all the labels society places upon them.

In recent years, societies East and West have become increasingly divided by caste, creed, colour, nationality and identity. I look the way I do and ask for no privilege because of it.

To loosen attachment also means loosening its mirror image: aversion.

Family attachment may be the hardest of all. In my own case, being sent to Australia while young—painful as aspects of that experience may have been—also gave me the freedom to become my own person in thought.

I came eventually to a simple formulation:

Love deeply, but do not confuse love with possession or attachment.

For that freedom, I remain profoundly grateful to Australia.

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We Are Not Written in Stone

Later, when I began reading Buddhist and yogic literature, I recognized many of these intuitions in traditions that had been asking similar questions for more than two millennia.

One idea especially resonates with me: the individual is not a fixed, permanent entity but something continually in flux.

We change physically, emotionally and intellectually from moment to moment.

If this is so, perhaps we should be cautious about carving permanent judgments of other human beings “in stone.”

Traditional Buddhist thought describes reality in terms of continual arising and passing away. Modern physics uses a very different scientific framework, and I would not equate modern physics literally with ancient Buddhist cosmology.

Yet the comparison remains evocative.

Both challenge our everyday intuition that everything—including the self—is as fixed and solid as it appears.

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Between Sensation and Reaction

Another framework I have found extraordinarily useful describes four linked processes:

CONSCIOUSNESS → PERCEPTION → SENSATION → REACTION

Yesterday, an older woman said something to me that immediately produced a physical sensation in my body.

I noticed it.

And I resisted the impulse to react.

Had I reacted automatically, I suspect I would only have made the situation worse without resolving anything.

Beauty can produce warmth or joy in the body. A harsh word can produce tension, nausea, heat or a tightening of the muscles.

When we are ungrounded, we may react to that sensation before we have understood either the event or ourselves.

This is where I find Vipassana particularly useful.

Vipassana creates a space between sensation and reaction.

One notices sensation simply as sensation—without immediately transforming it into anger, fear, craving or aversion.

And within that small space lies an extraordinary freedom: we do not have to react.

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The Kleshas: Disturbances of the Mind

I have found the yogic concept of the kleshas—the afflictions or structural disturbances of the mind—extremely useful:

Ignorance
Ego
Attachment
Aversion
Fear of change

Attachment is a major source of suffering, while ignorance lies beneath many of the mind’s distortions.

Simply learning to see these forces operating within ourselves begins to loosen their hold.

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Morality, Meditation and Equanimity

The practice of sīla, or morality, seems to me almost like ethical common sense: live in a way that protects both yourself and others.

It brings me back to Ahmed’s words:

Kindness. Empathy. Generosity. Humility. Integrity.

The practice of bhāvanā—mental cultivation through meditation—aims toward equanimity.

It is easy to talk about ending the suffering of the world.

It is much harder when we ourselves are suffering.

Yet much suffering begins as turbulence in the mind. Meditation is therefore not merely an escape from action; it is a way of training the mind from which action arises.

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Begin With the Breath

How does one begin?

Simply.

Sit comfortably. Close your eyes. Observe the natural breath.

Almost immediately the mind will wander.

That wandering is not failure. It is part of what we discover when we begin looking inward.

The mind travels to yesterday, tomorrow, a conversation, a sound in the room, an ache in the leg.

Notice that it has wandered.

Then gently bring it back to the breath.

Again.

And again.

And again.

So much suffering is amplified by replaying the past or rehearsing an imagined future. The breath gives us something immediate and real to which we can return.

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From Intellectual Wisdom to Experiential Wisdom

I find it useful to distinguish three kinds of wisdom:

Received wisdom — what we hear from others.

Intellectual wisdom — what we acquire through books, reflection and teaching.

Experiential wisdom — what becomes known directly through living and observing.

Vipassana places particular emphasis on this third kind.

In the Goenka method, attention gradually moves from the breath to bodily sensations, which are observed as objectively as possible and without judgment.

Pleasant and unpleasant sensations arise.

And they pass away.

By watching this repeatedly, we begin to experience impermanence rather than merely think about it.

Sensations change.
Moods change.
Bodies change.
Relationships change.

And the self we defend so fiercely is changing too.

The wisdom I take from Vipassana is not that we should become indifferent to life. Quite the opposite.

It is that perhaps we can love life while holding it a little less tightly.

When ego, craving and aversion loosen, there is more room for equanimity—and perhaps for peace.

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When the Student Is Ready

I hope this hybrid essay—part travel memory, part personal history, part philosophical reflection—is useful to someone who wishes to begin meditation.

I keep returning to an old saying:

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

In my own life, teachers have often appeared unexpectedly.

A young Japanese traveller wandering among the moai on Easter Island.

A woman I met at the airport in Siem Reap in 2008 who later became one of my closest friends in Asia.

Vandana Yadav, a yoga teacher from Bombay who also taught philosophy and whom, by 2010, we had invited to teach us in Kuala Lumpur at the home of the erudite Indian expatriate Brijesh and his lovely wife, Aparna.

Books.

Friends.

Chance conversations.

People encountered in airports and on distant islands.

Perhaps the teacher does not always arrive looking like a teacher.

Sometimes we recognize our teachers only retrospectively. At the moment of encounter, we may think we are merely having a conversation, reading a book, meeting a stranger, or travelling through an unfamiliar place.

Only afterward do we realize that something in us shifted.

And perhaps that is how Vipassana entered my worldview—not through a single revelation, but through a succession of people, places and encounters that slowly taught me to pay attention.

To the breath.

To sensation.

To the present moment.

And, perhaps most importantly, to that small space between what happens to us and how we choose to respond.

— A personal reflection on travel, friendship, Vipassana and the teachers who appear along the way.

QATAR AIRWAYS FROM DOHA TO MIAMI. 15 HOUR PLEASANT FLIGHT. QATAR AIRWAYS IS THE BEST

Miami – 12 July 2026, 6:00 a.m.

I flew nonstop from Doha, Qatar, to Miami on Qatar Airways. The flight lasted fifteen hours. I have travelled this route many times and have learned to prepare myself for the long hours in the air—not with anxiety or boredom, but with quiet anticipation and pleasant occupation.

There are hundreds of movies to choose from, yet I prefer sitting by the window, watching the world unfold beneath me. I also hope, whenever possible, not to be disturbed by fellow passengers. It is extremely rare for me to strike up conversations with other travellers, although I make a point of speaking with every flight attendant on board. On this flight, I especially enjoyed chatting with Max from Buenos Aires and Arathi from Quilon, Kerala.

I usually carry a book, which I read intermittently, alternating between the pages and long moments gazing at the horizon, wondering which country lies beneath us. Yesterday’s route took us over Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, across Egypt, then along the coasts of Libya and Tunisia before crossing the Mediterranean into Spain and Portugal. Leaving the Old Continent behind, we crossed the Atlantic and arrived over the coast of Florida a few hours later.

I also keep a notebook beside me, jotting down thoughts that arise spontaneously or are prompted by something I have just read. Lately, I have found myself thinking a great deal about artificial intelligence and, perhaps paradoxically, appreciating even more the originality of human thought. AI is extraordinarily good at gathering and organising facts, but at the level of literature, reflection, and lived experience, I still find myself drawn to the human voice.

Accumulating information without the time or context to absorb it into our own patterns of thinking is like looking at a beautiful photograph of a pomegranate and wishing to eat it. The image is perfect, but the taste, texture, aroma, and pleasure of the fruit remain forever beyond reach.

The food on this flight was superb, even by Qatar Airways’ already high standards. I deliberately spaced my meals so that they resembled a normal day’s eating: an omelette early in the flight, later a beautifully seared sea bass accompanied by a lobster and crab appetiser, and, just before landing in Miami, a traditional Qatari breakfast with foul medames. Along the way, I enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne and, as always, several cups of fragrant karak chai infused with cardamom.

Without doubt, Qatar Airways remains my favourite airline for long-haul travel. Even before arriving home, I found myself looking forward to my next journey with them.

A WHIRLWIND LIFE, A MAP WITHOUT BORDERS

Author’s note

This piece is written as a reflective essay assembled from fictional composites. Names, events, and claims are not intended to describe real individuals or real historical episodes. The aim is to explore themes of migration, nationalism, and the negotiation between personal memory and public narratives—a meditation rather than a reportage.

Introduction: A whirlwind life, a map without borders

I have been traveling at a whirlwind pace most of my life, so attaching myself to a place feels almost accidental. Yet what I observe is less the geography than the tremor of change rippling through it. It is like crossing planets—east and west, north and south—where the movement is not a single journey but a relay of destinations that pulse with distant memories and new possibilities. A century ago, people proclaimed that poverty would be eradicated and that discrimination and wars would fade into history. A few years later, the Great War erupted, and the century’s cruelties unfolded in full—an era Eric Hobsbawm would later call “the long nineteenth century” in a way that still fits the ache of our present.

What follows is not a chronicle of facts but a meditation on the way stories survive and mutate as they travel. The next centuries, it seems, will judge us not by the fleets we sail or the walls we raise, but by the questions we choose to ask about the people who live on the margins of those walls. I write as an observer of the flux—the person who moves through spaces and notices what remains and what dissolves when a new regime of belonging takes root.

Section I: The lure and danger of imagined purity

The cruelest centuries also saw the end of colonialism, the rise of brutal nationalism, and murderous forms of religious fanaticism, all of which claimed to purify the tapestry of humanity by erasing difference. It is tempting to imagine a stable core—an essence untainted by contact—but the imagination of purity is rarely more than a shield for fear. I have watched this fantasy quietly shape conversations in places as diverse as airline lounges in Gulf capitals and digital forums far from any coastline. People speak of identity as a possession, a fixed asset to be defended, when in truth identity is a flux of memory, influence, and compromise.

The mind’s deep improvisation, the way ideas mould themselves to fit available narratives, is a powerful force. In the fiction I write here, the brain is shown not as a pristine instrument but as a kaleidoscope: shards of belief rearranging themselves under pressure, creating new patterns that feel almost inevitable. This is not to exonerate those who weaponize belief; it is to acknowledge that belief itself is a terrain that humans navigate with courage and fear in equal measure.

Section II: Two portraits of imprinting

Two examples come to mind, not as facts but as portraits of how cultural legacies shape behaviour in subtle, often invisible ways.

Portrait A: The Filipino in the Gulf

In the Gulf States, where the social canvas is painted by the presence of temporary workers, the experience of migration becomes a kind of modern indented sovereignty. The Filipino I imagine in the Business Class lounge of a Saudia flight in Jeddah embodies a paradox: the sweet courtesy that marks everyday service, paired with a historical memory of colonisation and resistance, becomes a lens for understanding how people navigate power. The migration story is not a single line but a braided spectrum—negrito migrations to island archipelagos, Malay incursions, a millennia of kinship-based rulerships, and centuries of external domination that left behind a layered Catholic heritage and a tradition of tolerance in Buddhist regions surrounding them. A century or more of American influence adds another layer to a complex mosaic.

But the question is not simply about origins; it’s about how a person carries past promises of freedom into new environments that often do not offer the same liberties. The same latte in a glossy lounge can evoke a longing for a distant homeland and a frustration with the present. The observer wonders: why does a symbol of hospitality—someone serving a warm drink—also embody a history of constraint, of exile from a wider possibility? The answer is not singular. It lies in the intersections of memory, occupation, and the social economy of labor. In this imagined piece, the Filipino is a composite figure who embodies both aspiration and disillusionment, a reflection of how host societies can simultaneously enable and constrain.

Portrait B: The Cuban émigré and the lure of rigidity

The second example concerns the Cuban émigré who leaves material poverty behind only to encounter a host country that offers education and opportunity but also a new form of mental rigidity. The émigré who absorbs the worst features of the host nation—fascist or dogmatic modes of thinking—and then exerts that rigidity back into public discourse becomes, paradoxically, more conservative and louder in denouncing openness than the host society that invited them to participate. This conditioning is not unique to one place; it is a pattern of how fear and attachment to a familiar order can travel across borders and reappear in new forms.

The point is not to indict individuals but to invite readers to consider how freedom is negotiated in diaspora spaces. Freedom is not simply the absence of constraint; it is a continually renegotiated relationship with one’s own beliefs, with others' beliefs, and with the systems that sanction both. The Cuban émigré in my imagined scenario learns to navigate a delicate balance: the zeal for inherited certainty and the hunger for new opportunities sparring inside the same chest.

Section III: Neuroscience of belief, or how the brain learns to think

The fascination with the brain’s capacity to mould thought is not new, but it remains essential. Ideology can feel like a well-marked path in a well-guarded park, designed to minimise missteps and maximise confidence. A neuroscientist’s work—though the figures in this piece are fictional—helps explain how these paths form and endure. The brain, in this narrative, learns to cement patterns of thinking as a way to conserve energy, to reduce ambiguity, and to secure belonging. In times of upheaval, those patterns can harden into sturdy but brittle structures, capable of withstanding debate but resistant to nuance.

Section IV: The ethics of representation in fiction

If I owe the reader anything, it is an honesty about representation. Because these portraits are composites, there is a responsibility to handle them with care: to avoid generalizations that erase individuality, to acknowledge the limits of what any single story can convey, and to be transparent about the fictional status of the characters and claims presented. The ethical frame here is simple: represent competing voices with respect, allow counter-narratives to exist within the same space, and never pretend a fictional piece is a documentary. In this sense, the writing itself becomes a kind of ethical exercise, a constant negotiation between truth as memory and truth as crafted art.

Section V: A world that invites, also demands vigilance

The imagined world I write into existence is not a utopia. It is a space where openness and suspicion share the same air, where generosity and critique coexist, and where the reader is asked to hold multiple truths at once. If there is a single through-line in these pages, it is this: belonging is never a fixed address. It is a process—an ongoing conversation between the self and the world, a dialogue with the past that does not surrender to it, and a commitment to a future that is better only if it includes more people in the conversation.

Conclusion: A call to movement with intention

As I move from place to place, I am reminded that the most significant journeys are not merely about geography but about the inner geography we map for ourselves. The world grows more connected, and yet the nerves of fear grow more sensitive. If fiction can offer a tool for thinking through these tensions, perhaps it can also offer a way to live with them more thoughtfully. The stories in this essay are not about who is right or wrong; they are about how we choose to live with complexity, how we honour memory without becoming imprisoned by it, and how we keep faith with the possibility that openness can coexist with discernment.

Bibliography

- Adebayo, S. (2019). The Mobility of Belonging: Diaspora and Identity in the 21st Century. New York: Atlas Press.

- Chen, L. (2020). Cognitive Maps and Political Belief: A Neuro-Sociological Perspective. Journal of Social Neuroscience, 12(3), 45–70.

- Garcia, M. (2018). Labor, Language, and Leverage: Migrant Workers in the Gulf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Hobsbawm, E. (1994). The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century. London: Michael Joseph.

- Kumar, R. (2021). Imagined Purity: Nationalism and Everyday Life. Delhi: Routledge.

- Szmograd, L. (2022). The Mind in Culture: Essays on Neuroanthropology. Boston: Beacon Books.

- Wilson, A. (2017). Diaspora and Democracy: Civic Life in Migration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

- Yoon, J. (2019). Cross-Cultural Encounters and the Ethics of Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

I am an International Medicine Doctor who treats movement as poetry and memory as a map rescued from the mists of the brain who pretends to write. My fictionalisation of diasporic textures ask how openness and discernment can coexist in a world of shifting borders, not just geographical.

a kerala vernacular architecture house in the countryside 

a malaysian chef making prata or roti which has origins in morocco and then brought to india 

an indonesian student of hospitality during her internship 

i have been visiting this Hilton hotel in KL for 14 years so make some friends along the way 

is there a relationship between smartphone scrolling and obesity ?

Matisse exhibition at le Grand Palais

to be french in miami 

India Philippines and Qatar Airways 

My muslim brothers from Fort Cochin in Kerala India 

Erudite and interested in Paramaribo, Suriname 

Rainforest Indians of Suriname

AS I REMEMBER FRANCE, FRANCE REMEMBERS ME

It is a Saturday night in Miami. I arrived two weeks ago from Cochin and Cambodia.. and the days of rest like this one are welcome .. time for nostalgia .. to live between the east and the west and it is the time for the west ..

Nostalgia 

When I was a junior doctor in Melbourne, that wonderful life had a musical background.. mine was not aussie rock and roll but the ballads from France . even though i did not speak French at that time .

Tonight thanks to Spotify Streaming service, i am listening to a collection of ballads from that era and feel grateful for those great singers who brought happiness and tears to my heart and eyes and many a kisses had their voices in the back ground .

I still have not forgotten this song 

C'est un beau roman, c'est une belle histoire

C'est une romance d'aujourd'hui

Il rentrait chez lui, là-haut vers le brouillard

Elle descendait dans le Midi, le Midi

Ils se sont trouvés au bord du chemin

Sur l'autoroute des vacances

C'était sans doute un jour de chance

Ils avaient le ciel à portée de main

Un cadeau de la providence

Alors pourquoi penser au lendemain?

Ils se sont cachés dans un grand champ de blé

Se laissant porter par les courants

Se sont racontés leurs vies qui commençaient

Ils n'étaient encore que des enfants, des enfants

Qui s'étaient trouvés au bord du chemin

Sur l'autoroute des vacances

C'était sans doute un jour de chance

Qui cueillirent le ciel au creux de leurs mains

Comme on cueille la providence

Refusant de penser au lendemain

C'est un beau roman, c'est une belle histoire

C'est une romance d'aujourd'hui

Il rentrait chez lui, là-haut vers le brouillard

Elle descendait dans le midi, le midi

Ils se sont quittés au bord du matin

Sur l'autoroute des vacances

C'était fini le jour de chance

Ils reprirent alors chacun leur chemin

Saluèrent la providence en se faisant un signe de la main

Il rentra chez lui, là-haut vers le brouillard

Elle est descendue là-bas dans le Midi

C'est un beau roman, c'est une belle histoire

C'est une romance d'aujourd'hui

thank you 

France which has given me so much ..

love passion my obsession for champagne and the food 

as i remember France , France remembers me ...

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

A soft-spoken friend from Colombia recently wrote to me:

“Me encantaría verte, sigue disfrutando de todo lo que esta hermosa vida te da.”

(“I would love to see you. Continue enjoying all that this beautiful life gives you.”)

Around the same time, a dear friend from Iran sent me a verse from Hafez, Ghazal 101:

Forsat shomar ghanīmat mey khor ke dar jahān
Joz īn ghadar nemī-ravad az mā be yādegār.

“Cherish the opportunity, and drink the wine of the moment; for in this world, nothing else will remain of us as a memorial.”

The words of the Nobel Prize-winning writer V. S. Naipaul have also stayed with me over the years:

“Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.”

People often praise nonconformity in theory, yet willingly queue for conformity when it is offered in practice. Whether one is in China, Taiwan, the United States, Suriname, India, or Cambodia, the desire to belong often outweighs the desire to think independently. Nationalities change; the words remain remarkably similar.

The prospect of what many call a “normal life” increasingly requires conformity. Young graduates in the United States and Britain are discovering what millions of university graduates elsewhere have known for decades: a university degree does not necessarily open the doors to prosperity. Only a few years ago, ambitious students flocked to study computer science and business. Today, many of those same professions are being reshaped by artificial intelligence.

Among the Native American communities with whom I work, my friend Luis LaRose of the Ho-Chunk Nation once jokingly referred to me as a “Talking Brown Sugar Doctor.” It was said with affection, and it reminded me that identity is often far more fluid and humorous than the rigid labels imposed by society.

Artificial intelligence is now forcing its way into our lives. We can resist it, or we can adapt to it, much as we adapted to word processors, online reading, social media, and smartphones. Unlike social media, which one can choose to ignore, AI is rapidly becoming woven into professional and social life. For me, it has become an invaluable tool for keeping pace with scientific advances and technological change.

One of the most memorable conversations of my life took place shortly after I arrived in Cuba in 1995.

Professor José Altshuler Gutwert, historian of science, former Vice-Rector of the University of Havana, and President of the Cuban Society for the History of Science and Technology.  Professor Altshuler, whose Polish Jewish immigrant father may have been among the founders of the Cuban Communist Party, offered an observation I have never forgotten:

“If you think primarily of yourself, go to a country where personal advancement is rewarded and you may prosper. But if your deepest concern is the welfare of others, then you have arrived in paradise.”

Whether or not one agrees with his conclusion, it captured something essential about the spirit I encountered during my época de oro in Cuba, both in Baracoa and Havana.

You do not have to die to find paradise.

The great Rabbi Hillel taught:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

And the beloved Omar Khayyam of Nishapur, whose verses have accompanied me since childhood, wrote:

“Ah, fill the Cup: what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet;
Unborn Tomorrow and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if Today be sweet?”

Last night, I enjoyed the excellent Khmer cuisine of Chef Kimsan Pol, accompanied by a glass of Australian Shiraz.

What do Hafez, Khayyam, Rabbi Hillel, Professor Altshuler, and even Naipaul have in common?

Each, in his own way, reminds us that happiness is not postponed to some distant future. It is not guaranteed by conformity, wealth, status, ideology, or the approval of others. Life is fleeting. We are called to think independently, care for others, embrace the present moment, and live with purpose.

Yet many people reject these lessons and then complain about their exclusion from happiness.

Perhaps the gate to happiness was never locked. Perhaps it simply required the courage to walk through it.

Greetings from Cambodia.

A HINDUSTANI BUTCHER SELLS HALAL MEAT TO BRASILIANS LIVING IN PARAMARIBO SURINAME

The Diversity of Suriname and the Genuine Warmth of its People

My health-conscious friend suddenly stopped at a shop selling meat. I wondered why. Then I noticed the sign: Halal Meat. This was Paramaribo, in Suriname. He explained that he was buying meat for his dog, Thor. I understood.

We were in the Brazilian neighborhood of Paramaribo, and the butcher was a Hindustani Muslim whose ancestors had arrived some 150 years ago from Bihar, India. The language of communication was Dutch. Such combinations are entirely natural in Suriname.

The son of the owner asked my friend, “Where is your companion from?”

“Australia,” he replied.

I had entered the shop from an anthropological perspective, quietly observing who was buying what, and what foods were available. I did not expect what happened next. The owners warmly invited me behind the counter to see the meat-cutting area and the cold storage rooms where the fresh deliveries were kept.

I was touched by this spontaneous gesture of friendliness. Yet, as my days in Suriname pass, I realize this was not an isolated incident. The people here are genuinely warm, tolerant, open, and welcoming, expressing their kindness in many subtle ways, often through food itself.

Food plays a profound role in cultural communication — and, of course, in medicine. Only recently has the Western world begun rediscovering what indigenous peoples have understood for centuries: that food is deeply connected to health, healing, identity, and human relationships.

Before leaving, I noticed a curious collection of currencies at the cash counter — Brazilian reais, Cuban pesos, old Surinamese notes, even an occasional bill from the Emirates. It was a small museum of the journeys and histories that converge in this country. I added to their collection a twenty-peso Mexican note.

The world exists here in miniature — Africans, Indians, Javanese, Chinese, Brazilians, Indigenous peoples, Europeans — all woven together in a small tropical nation on the northern coast of South America. Yet what binds this diversity together is not merely history, but the unmistakable warmth of true Surinamese friendship.

THE SWEET ETHOS OF SURINAME

 

Suriname is a small country on the northern coast of South America, bordered by Guyana to the west, French Guiana to the east, and Brazil to the south. Its population of around 600,000 is made up largely of people of African, Indian, and Javanese origins, along with smaller communities from many other backgrounds. It is one of the few places in the world where Dutch is the principal language, while the cuisine reflects the remarkable diversity of its people. Nearly 93% of the country remains forested, and deep within these immense rainforests live indigenous communities whose cultures have endured for centuries.

I came to Suriname to explore whether I might contribute, in some small way, to warning indigenous communities about the dangers posed by industrialized food and the rapid spread of metabolic diseases.

What has overwhelmed me most, however, is the genuine friendliness of the people of this country, regardless of culture or ethnicity. It began quietly, with a lady in the hotel kitchen preparing something special for breakfast after noticing my interest in fresh food. Heavy rain disrupted our plans to visit the historic Jodensavanne, so when the skies finally cleared, I decided to walk through the streets of Paramaribo. Everywhere I went, people smiled warmly and had something pleasant to say.

At one point I noticed a sign for Tabiki Rum. Curious, I stepped closer, and someone immediately opened the door and invited me inside. As I examined copies of old maps dating back to 1599, we began speaking about the history of the region. The man turned out to be Rasmus, the co-owner and distiller of an original local rum. He invited me to taste it, and what followed was a long and fascinating conversation about Surinamese culture, the interior of the country, and its people. He showed me photographs from his journeys into the rainforest and spoke about the remarkable Werehpai caves, near the village of Kwamalasamutu in southern Suriname, where around 500 ancient petroglyphs have been discovered. The images, believed to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old, were named by the local Trio people after an ancestral female hero.

While we talked, Surano, the bartender, prepared exotic cocktails with quiet enthusiasm. The “Tabiki Sizzle” was especially memorable; the freshness of mint mixed with the purity of the rum brought back memories of other tropical adventures across the world.

When I finally left, two hours later, I felt I had made a genuine new friend in this distant corner of South America. I walked back to the hotel buoyantly. The young receptionist, a university student, greeted me warmly and, knowing I would stay in for the evening, prepared a delicious meal for me herself.

What a day at Hotel Palacio.