How to Bali
Spending the past week in Bali, and like most places visited on vacation, it didn’t take long to notice the obvious—the palm trees, the beaches, the warmth in the air. But what stayed with me wasn’t the scenery. It was something quieter, something that didn’t call attention to itself.
One afternoon, while walking through a small village, I stopped in the middle of a busy street. I hadn’t meant to, but something caught my eye. The gates to a traditional Balinese home had been left open, revealing an intricately carved temple standing inside.
It was beautiful, but what struck me wasn’t the temple itself. It was its placement—right there at the front, effortlessly integrated into everyday life. Not hidden away in a quiet room, not reserved for special occasions. Just there.
It was striking, this natural coexistence of spirituality within the ordinary. Growing up in the West, spirituality often felt compartmentalized—something reserved for specific days, special ceremonies, or particular places of worship. Here in Bali, it is constant and present, quietly part of every day living.
The scooter narrowly missed me as I stood there, staring at the temple, the driver offering a gentle smile rather than the expected frustration.
No horn, no shouting, just a slight adjustment of course before continuing on. This happens daily on Bali's roads—a beautiful chaos that somehow functions with unexpected grace. Narrow streets built for one direction somehow accommodate two. Sidewalks appear and disappear without warning. Traffic signals exist mostly as suggestions. By all conventional wisdom, this should create constant tension, yet the opposite occurs.
In Delhi, drivers would lean heavily on their horns. In London, there would be structured outrage. In New York, colorful language would fill the air. But here, the chaos breathes with its own peculiar calm. The traffic moves like water finding its path, each vehicle sensing the others without rigid rules dictating every movement. There's an unspoken agreement to make space, to yield when yielding makes sense, to flow rather than force.
Bali exists in contradictions that somehow aren't contradictory at all.
Ancient stone temples stand beside sleek cafés serving flat whites. Traditional ceremonies with elaborate offerings occur next to digital nomads typing on MacBooks. A ceremony might temporarily close a main road, and everyone simply adjusts without complaint. Time stretches and contracts depending on what the moment requires, rather than adhering to strict schedules.
The concept of "either" feels foreign here. Instead, there is "both"—a capacity to hold seemingly opposite things with equal regard.
Every morning, small offerings appear everywhere—tiny palm-leaf baskets filled with flowers, rice, and incense. They rest on sidewalks, at entryways, on dashboards, at intersections. By afternoon, many are swept away or stepped over, yet the next day they appear again. The offerings aren't precious in the sense of needing to be preserved. Their value lies in the daily practice, the consistency of attention, rather than the permanence of the object itself.
This steady rhythm of small, intentional acts creates a different relationship with time. Each day contains these moments of pause and recognition. The mind isn't constantly pulled toward some future outcome or achievement. Instead, there is a gentle anchoring in the present—not through elaborate methods or dedicated retreats, but through these tiny consistent acknowledgments woven into ordinary activities.
One evening, watching the sun set at the beach, it occurred to me that what feels most striking about Bali isn't any single aspect but rather the ease with which apparent opposites coexist.
Work doesn't struggle against rest; they flow into each other. Technology doesn't battle tradition; they complement one another. Spirituality doesn't compete with practicality; they inform each other. The sacred doesn't need protection from the mundane; they are understood as parts of the same whole.
There's no need for rigid boundaries between categories of experience. The mind that created such distinctions can also allow them to dissolve.
Back home, my life often feels sectioned off into discrete areas that rarely touch. Investing stays in its lane. Health and relationships occupy designated times. Deeper questions about meaning or purpose get their occasional moment, usually when something disrupts the normal patterns.
This compartmentalization isn't inherently wrong. Structure creates clarity, efficiency, focus. Yet something is lost in this careful separation—a certain richness that comes from allowing different aspects of life to inform and transform each other.
Perhaps harmony doesn't require sameness or careful sorting. Perhaps it emerges naturally when we stop insisting that different elements of our experience must remain distinct and separate.
My last night in Bali, I found myself again in traffic, this time as a passenger watching the dance of vehicles negotiating a roundabout with no signals or rules beyond an unspoken understanding. Motorbikes, cars, pedestrians, even a few chickens—all somehow finding their way through without collision. No single path was identical, yet all were flowing toward their destinations.
It seemed, in that moment, a perfect metaphor. The harmony wasn't created by forcing everything to follow identical paths but rather by allowing each to find its own way while remaining aware of the whole. The contradictions were never really contradictions at all—just different expressions of the same life, moving in its own perfect, imperfect way.
And that is how I learned to Bali.
