Iconic minimalism. The great travel writer Paul Theroux, on meeting a buddhist monk on a train in Myanmar:

“Do you have another bag?” I asked, because the smallness of this one seemed an improbable size for a long-term traveler.

“No, these are all my possessions.”

Everything, not just for a year of travel, but everything he owned in the world, in a bag he easily slung under one arm. True, this was a warm climate, but the bag was smaller than a supermarket shopping bag. 

“May I ask you what’s inside?”

Tapa Snim, tugging the knot loose, gladly showed me the entire contents.

“My bowl, very important,” he said, taking out the first item. It was a small black plastic soup bowl, with a close-fitting lid. He used it for begging alms, but he also used it for rice. 

In a small bag: a piece of soap in a container, sunglasses, a flashlight, a tube of mosquito repellent, a tin of aspirin.  In a small plastic box: a spool of grey thread, a pair of scissors, nail clippers, Q-tips, a thimble, needles, rubber bands, a 2-inch mirror, a tube of cream to prevent foot fungus, Chapstick, nasal spray and razor blades.

“Also very important,” he said, showing me the razor blades. “I shave my head every fifteen days.”

Neatly folded, one thin wool sweater, a shawl he called a kasaya, a change of clothes. In a document pouch, he had a notebook and some papers, a photograph showing him posed with a dozen other monks (“to introduce myself”) and a large certificate in Chinese characters he called his bikkhu certificate, the official proof he was a monk, with signatures and seals and brushwork. 

And a Sharp electronic dictionary that allowed him to translate from many languages, and a string of beads – 108 beads, the spiritual number.

As I was writing down the list, he said, “And this” – his straw hat – “and this” – his fan. 

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing.”

“What about money?”

“That’s my secret.”

Then he carefully placed it in the open cloth, and drew the cloth together into a sack, everything he owned on the earth. 

– from “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” by Paul Theroux.

Sometimes you read something and it sticks with you for the rest of your life.