The story of Venerable Vineetha Mahayaye

What you find when you leave everything behind

It is human nature to care about how others perceive us. We curate ourselves based on those expectations, learning early on what earns love and attention and what does not. You were told you were the funny one, so now you are afraid people will judge you if you are serious. You have always assumed you were bad at math because you were never placed into the accelerated math class in third grade (and might not be over that one).

It is possible that you’ve recognized some of these misconceptions — maybe you’ve invested in some therapy, picked up a self-help book or two. But what if the only way to find your authentic self was to leave everything behind — to walk away from modern comforts and live alone for two years in a cave in the forest?

For Buddhist Chaplain Vineetha Mahayaye, that was the only way. Mahayaye became a monk at 10 years old. For him, there was no grand revelation, no moment of nirvana under the bodhi tree.

“I really wanted to wear the robe,” he said. “I really wanted to spend the time at the temple. It’s something very simple.”

His parents disapproved. He could barely dress himself — how was he to live alone in the monastery? But his aunt, a devout Buddhist, persuaded them. They relented, warning him that once he became a monk, he could never return to life as a layperson.

“In Sri Lanka, people have this idea, in general, if you become a monk, you should stay as a monk,” Mahayaye said.

So, at 10 years old, he made a lifelong vow. In the monastery, he quickly became accustomed to a routine of discipline: He rose before dawn to chant, ate in silence and swept the compound until every leaf was gone. He learned how to clean his robes, how to arrive at the dining hall at 7:30 a.m. — or else not eat at all.

Perhaps most importantly, he also studied. He studied the sacred languages — Sanskrit, Pali and Sinhala — as well as the Pali Canon, the core collection of Theravada Buddhist scriptures.

“I had this strong goal that I want to be successful in education, and I want to build myself without anyone else’s support,” he said.

He knew discipline, knew how to follow the rules — but finding belonging was harder.

“There [were] friend groups, but I didn’t belong to any of them,” he said.

Even beyond his peers, finding a connection with his superiors was challenging.  

“I couldn’t make a strong connection with the head monks, like chief monks at the temples, and I felt lonely. I felt miserable.”

Left to fend for himself, he turned inward. His teachers praised his intellect, and he leaned into it. He became the bright student and the self-sufficient monk.

Those two identities carried him far. He went off to study at one of the top universities in Sri Lanka, then earned admission to Harvard Divinity School, where he pursued a master’s degree in divinity. At Harvard, his world widened.

“When I started studying at Harvard Divinity School, I started learning about Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and also about other religious traditions,” he said. “It was a very nice experience to know other people as human beings … [that] whatever practices we believe in, whatever practices we do, we share this one common humanity.” 

But even as he grew more open-minded and succeeded in his classes, something did not quite feel right. Though he could recite the teachings, analyze the Pali Canon and quote his professors with ease, he still felt lost.

“I knew the practice as some descriptions [but] I did not experience it,” he said. “It’s like I knew the description of the mango, but I did not eat it for myself.”

This desire for something ‘real’ led him to question the life he had always known: “I [had] been a monk for my whole life, and I really wanted to experience the world outside.”

But the thought of exploring terrified him, and the expectations of others only amplified the pressure.

“I had a really good connection with my professor, and he really [respected me], and one of the worries that I had [was about] what would happen when [he learned] that I’m going to disrobe,” Mahayaye said. “And then my parents had really high [standards] for me.”

On his parents’ comments about potentially disrobing, Mahayaye recalled, “They were telling me, ‘You’re going to disrobe? Then what? What [will] other people think of you? They would think of you badly. They would think that you are a bad monk.’ That’s the Sri Lankan way of thinking.”

Eventually, through the conflict, he found clarity.

“I realized, ‘Oh my god, I am not living the life that I want to live. I am maintaining what others want me to be like,’” Mahayaye said.

After finishing his degree at Harvard, he returned to Sri Lanka and went to the forest. He was not trying to escape being a monk, but looking to find a way back to it. When the noise of expectations receded, he considered what kind of monk he actually wanted to be. There was no electricity, no water, no internet. Just the small, steady voices of the birds and the wind.

In a neighboring cave lived an elderly monk. Mahayaye approached him for guidance, asking which meditation he practiced. According to Mahayaye, the elder monk simply replied: “I meditated before, but now I do not find anything to be meditated on.”

At first, the answer frustrated him.

“I was very confused because that thing was not aligned with my knowledge … [and] my studies of 20 years,” Mahayaye said.

He dismissed the man as foolish, but it was not until weeks later that he realized how wrong he had been. No matter how much Mahayaye tried to intellectualize everything about the practice, he began to realize that what he was missing was not in the books. The practice was not a scripture to be analyzed — it had to be lived.

“I began to question my own practice with his help. And then I realized, there is something that … cannot be put into words,” he said.

After 2 1/2 years spent living in the cave, Mahayaye felt ready to leave the forest.

“I felt very confident, and I realized now it doesn’t matter whether I live in a city, whether I live with people, whether I live in a cave, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “This time I am doing my practice. … I am being mindful of how my body is. This mindfulness is the practice.”

Shortly after leaving the cave in 2024, a friend told him about an opening for a Buddhist Chaplain at Tufts University. He applied, and soon, he was back in Boston.

A year later, I sat with him in his office — a small, quiet room in the Interfaith Center with a Buddha shrine in the corner and a well-loved tea kettle on the counter.

At Tufts, he leads mindfulness programs three times a week. He’s back in the university setting where he’s spent much of his life, but this time, he’s not the one behind books. Instead, he brews tea for everyone, passes around snacks from Whole Foods and reminds his students to question their beliefs and question him because “If they do not question, there is no journey.” You might spot him around campus in his saffron robe, walking along the Mystic River. Often alone, but rarely lonely.

He does not preach the practice from above; he sits beside his students, guiding us to find it for ourselves.

“He’s just so human about the way that he practices Buddhism,” Michelle Burger, a senior at Tufts and co-president of the Tufts Buddhist Mindfulness Sangha, said.

Like anyone else, he laughs easily, gets nervous before events and sometimes sends many emails when he’s anxious about details. He calls his parents every day.

When I asked Mahayaye what enlightenment is, he gave one of his characteristic non-answers: a metaphor about tasting food that I could not quite follow. But upon reflecting, I have begun to sense what he meant. Maybe enlightenment is something beyond words — something we, as humans, keep trying to define and contain.

Enlightenment is not some divine transcendence reserved for the chosen few. It’s not about escaping humanness but existing as we are — knowing we will feel longing and loss and jealousy and joy and even love, and it is all part of the journey.

“He’s made me realize that … the point is to hold your emotions and acknowledge them, but also let them be free and realize that they are not you,” Burger said.

I asked whether he could ever see himself falling in love — something forbidden for Theravada monks.

“It could happen, and if I have to disrobe, I [will] just disrobe,” he said. “Once your mind is ordained, once your mind is a monk, it doesn’t matter. … Whether I am a monk, [or] I am a layperson, I eat, I walk, I will behave and I’m not afraid of anything right now.”

Robe or no robe, artist or engineer, the quiet one or the comic relief, at our barest and most honest, we are human.

And maybe, that’s enough.

The original story can be found on The Tufts Daily website.