by quinn | Sep 18, 2017 | Africa, Asia, Digital Nomads, English, Europe, South America
Many travel destinations have more visitors during a high season, when the weather is best, during holidays and festivals, or perhaps just because of habitual migration. These are often important reasons; travellers accept the crowds and inflated prices as trade-offs.
Occasionally, even sensible travellers disregard their guidebook’s first chapter (“When To Go”) and visit during the “wrong” season – and they win! The weather is not unpleasant, the prices are heavily discounted, the streets are free, the locals are more open, and new perspectives are unveiled. And sometimes, while out picking wild asparagus, the sky bursts with rainbows, and you really wonder: why is this the low season?
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by Alma | Jan 28, 2014 | Digital Nomads, English, Travel tips
We’ve spent the past six years traveling, studying and taking retreat in Colombia, India, Nepal, Thailand, the UK and recently, traveled by bicycle, from Málaga, Spain to the island of Santorini, Greece. Then we were destined for North Africa before we flew back to the Americas.
We both have work we can do over the internet, and travel with laptops and other things that talk to the internet. Quinn operates Strangecode, a company offering website programming and server management, and Alma is the founder of ContemplArte where she teaches meditation, yoga and contemplative art through online courses, blog and youtube channel, she also works on different projects as a contemplative artist, illustrator, architect and graphic designer click here to see her portfolio.
We are currently on our way to become certified teachers of “Cultivating Emotional Balance” and we’ll continue traveling around the world offering workshops and developing an online community of students.
We’re certainly aware we are socially advantaged compared to most of the world. We have compassion for people suffering from political oppression or lacking basic human needs and know the freedoms we enjoy really are only a dream for some. For others, freedom is obtained by choosing it: by releasing attachment to comforts, redefining your role in life, being open to others’ graciousness. History provides many examples of travelers circling the world, village by village, before the days of ATMs and travel insurance.
Some people think we must return to a normal way of life someday. Our bodies will become old and broken eventually, regardless of our way of life. It would be foolish not to benefit from society’s support networks, and invest in finding pleasant places to wind down. This leaves many options beyond the quotidian: a monastery in Nepal, communal farm in Thailand, a little fisherman’s hut on a Greek isle. Why be normal?
We like to motivate people to consider a life lived freely, to go and do and be and feel as one chooses. What would it take to succeed in this? Many presume living a materialistic lifestyle will provide the ultimate basis for freedom. Certainly there are many levels which support a flourishing existence, each an area for growth and development. If you would like to learn more about living lucidly, with freedom and more time for your dreams and your loved ones, please subscribe to our newsletter and youtube channel.
by Alma | Jan 31, 2011 | Asia, English
The Korean monastery is located in an ancient town, Sravasti, where the Buddha spent several years of his life teaching and meditating. One of his disciples built phentermine a monastery for him and his followers, it was called Jetavana. The remains of it are frequently visited by pilgrims who stay in monasteries built around this area.
At the Korean monastery there is a Zen master who has great wisdom.
We would get up at 4am to meditate with Zen master silently until 5am. Then we would go to sit by the fire while we waited for the bell announcing breakfast. After the traditional prayer of the refuge we fed with exquisite Korean food cooked by an Indian cook.
At 8am we had tea with Zen Master sometimes over an apparently superficial topic of conversation, others in silence, but in the end he was always using whatever was arising in the present moment to give us a profound teaching.
At 10am we would recite the with the zen master whom we called Kun Sunim which means teacher in Korean. The sutra talks about wisdom and the immense merit that transmitting it has. Kun Sunim lives to transmit this wisdom in the same place where 2.500 years ago the Buddha first taught it to his disciples.
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