backpack for walking pilgrimage

I am raising money for a hiking backpack to continue my pilgrimage to find a monastery suitable for ordination. If you have found your way here then you probably read about this in Passages, the Substack newsletter I am setting up to send updates.

If you found yourself here through some other link:

I have been through a crisis of faith recently, and have decided to move on from Bodhivana in search of a monastery that is more suitable for my ordination. And I intend to do this in the form of a walking pilgrimage inspired by the wandering monks of old.

Trouble is, I don’t have any money because, yeah, I threw all my eggs into the ordaining-at-Bodhivana basket. I want to leave my eggs in the ordination basket, so I won’t be going back on the dole and I won’t be going back to work ~ because, this is my work.

My ‘work’, for want of a better word (purpose? calling?) is that of an in(ter)dependent contemplative and (until I ordain) an 8-precept lay renunciant wandering in search of a teacher and a community of practice, where my work is to:

And I do this in service, (mostly) free of charge because learning, practising and sharing the dharma is, in my opinion, the highest form of giving.

(I say ‘mostly’ because while I am on 8 precepts I will be receiving and handling money, until I do find an institution where I can reliably ordain and renounce money altogether.)

Really, that is what I am asking you to support: the dharma and the future we can realise by living according to values other than mainstream materialism.

So I am asking you to support me but I am just an instrument of the dharma, and believing in that about myself is also something that I am wanting to lean-into.

For more info, please check out that post on Passages, linked here again.

Meanwhile, this is the bag I intend to buy, and please let me know if you have any questions.