Light and Shadow (Narrative)
A Narrative “Story of the Week” about my quest to understand the dissolution of my parents’ marriage and the disintegration of our family. The story opens in Spain and is intertwined with The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena), a masterpiece of Spanish cinema that’s celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Leaving the Palace (Tricycle)
Buddhism, womanhood, and my journey towards authentic selfhood.
A Journey Between Lives (Tricycle: The Buddhist Review)
I explore how I found my way back to my ancestors through The Tibetan Book of the Dead. “Even as I gradually understood more about The Tibetan Book of the Dead, its essence eluded me… Then two things happened that changed my understanding of the book, as well as my view of how to live my life.”
My Great-Grandfather’s Saddle Rug Helps Me Remember a Tibet That’s Gone (Catapult)
Contemplating the mandala design of the saddle rug draws me into my great-grandfather’s story in a similar way, I like to think, as meditating on a mandala opens the door to its inner geography. It helps me keep hold of him, and of a Tibet that’s vanished…
My Father, Montaigne, and the Art of Living (Catapult)
A Notable in Best American Essays 2021, and featured in Memoir Monday. I explore what I learned from my father, and Montaigne, about how to live well. “As a philosopher and a physician, my father wasn’t afraid of dying; if anything, he feared coming to the end of his life not having lived.”