A word from the founder…

A word from the founder

“My first time touching down on Burmese soil was in March 2003. Already a serious meditator, I took a ten-day course in Yangon and visited a few monasteries and pagodas, and I knew I just had to come back. I returned to live in November 2007, and have been here since.

From the start I was eager to access the great Dhamma sites of the Golden Land, but I soon found there was no roadmap ahead of me. It took me years to learn locations of sites and their history, as well as monastic protocol and basic Burmese culture. As I began learning, so also did I wish to begin sharing. I made amateur documentaries about great Burmese monks, wrote regular blog posts, and published stories and photos on social media platforms, so that foreign meditators would have a shorter path to learning and access than I had had. I also spent over four years leading the volunteer project “Shwe Lan Ga Lay,” which would function as a free meditator’s guide to the country.

However, even with this increased access to information, actual planning and travel can still be challenging for some, and so we set up this company to help facilitate Dhamma travel for meditators and aspiring monastics. With Myanmar Pilgrimage, we are able to assist pilgrims through every stage of their planning, giving complete attention to be able to provide the highest levels of customization. Facilitating greater access and fostering deeper appreciation have been goals from Day 1 of my Burma experience, and I’m so grateful that this work has provided another avenue for this to take place.

I truly feel blessed to be in this role. The pilgrims that make our way to us very soon feel like part of our family, as we engage in deep Dhamma talks and discuss our spiritual challenges and aspirations, as we continue to walk the path together.”

— Joah McGee