Some memories arrive unannounced.

When I was a young novice at a Buddhist monastery in Burma my father entered a month-long period of intensive meditation.

While I spent my days in the carefree ways of a boy, he followed a rigorous schedule of silence, contemplation, and long discussions with the monastery’s head monk. Out of that experience came The Yellow Robe, an English-language poem that explored some of Buddhism’s most fundamental questions: self and non-self, suffering, mindfulness, awareness, and the long journey through samsara.

Many years later, I found myself returning to that poem—not only as a reader, but as a son.

This essay began as an introduction to a collection of my father’s poetry. In revisiting The Yellow Robe, I explore the poem’s structure, symbolism, and Buddhist themes, while reflecting on the memory of the man who wrote it: a poet, public servant, diplomat, and lifelong seeker whose path eventually led back to stillness.

What began as literary commentary became something more personal—a conversation across time, carried by memory, meditation, and a yellow robe.

Read the full essay on Medium.