It was meant to be

I travelled by train, alone, through the Indonesian paddy fields to reach the Borobudur temple. I climbed the steep steps of Wat Arun in the suffocating heat of Bangkok, and stopped for a few minutes to observe the feet of the Sleeping Buddha. I heard the sound of sutras through my window in Luang Prabang. In a small temple overlooking lake Inle, in Burma, I received my blessing and a thread, which I still wear around my neck today. I flew at dawn over the Valley of the Temples of Bagan, in Myanmar. I spoke to, photographed, and joked with some young monks in a monastery lost in the Nepalese mountains. I sat down to breath in front of Kyoto’s Golden Pavilion, and I lost my glasses while walking in circles around the Shwedagon Temple in Ragoon. For hundreds of days, I woke up and fell asleep near a tiny, golden, and smiling monk, and the peaceful face of Siddartha Gautama, with his hands leaning forward to calm the Ocean.

Now I finally know why.

I will think, write, direct and photograph stories for the Italian Buddhist Union.