“I can’t count mantra.” I confess this out loud in the shrine tent amid the gathering of three hundred of Sogyal Rinpoche’s senior and most devoted students from around the world. I didn’t know how to use a mala—Buddhist beads for counting sacred syllables, a method to pacify discursive thoughts. Nor did I particularly want to use the mala…

The day with Zenkar Rinpoche began innocently enough packing up his books and other items for his flight back to London. For our tea break, I filled the kettle, turned on the stove and left the water to boil, expecting it to whistle. I didn’t know that Rinpoche’s hosts customarily used the oven shelving as storage space for things that should not be stored in an oven. The kettle whistle didn’t work, but the smell of smoke did as it…

This was the first time I was practicing in a Tibetan Buddhist temple among Tibetans. How could I sit there and not be distracted by their authenticity and by their impoverishment? Prayer itself was major sustenance for this community. For my own dharma practice to be meaningful, I needed to open my heart more to all beings. It wouldn’t do to simply voice prayers in the manner of a well-trained…

I had purchased a one-way ticket to Nepal. Despite a conscientious effort to leave America with all i’s dotted and t’s crossed, it felt more like I just grabbed a toothbrush and left town the way someone might walk out of a faltering marriage—exhausted, harboring no ill feelings, wanting no material settlement, only a fresh start. Living tongue-tied among Tibetans during my initial months in Boudha was maddening, but it was utterly delightful to be free of my New York worldly routine.