Maud Newton: “Moving Forward in the Present by Connecting to the Past”

The Tibetan bardo teachings tell us that understanding the connection between our past and present is essential to escaping samsara, or the ways of living that make us unhappy. You talk in your book about the negative impact of losing touch with our ancestors. Why do you think it’s important to know our family history? We’ve lost a sense of being held by those who have come before, a way of interrelating with family trauma and family patterns. I find the white Western Enlightenment–dominated way of interacting with ancestors incredibly sad. When someone dies, we think, “That person’s dead and we have no way of interacting with what they did, so let’s just move forward.” But the more we can acknowledge things about the people we come from, about ways we’ve internalized helpful and unhelpful things, the better we can show up in the world…

Read the interview here.