This is the memoir of a slipshod yogini. May it make you smile and book a flight to Nepal.

What the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago is “live” in Nepal, a crazy-quilted land of prayer, terraced rice fields, lazy hazy afternoons and cows that know they are sacred and sit in the middle of the road directing traffic. The country’s northern border shares Mt. Everest with Tibet and offers a sojourner jaw-dropping opportunity to experience just how dreamlike life is.

HH the 14th Dalai Lama was conferring the 1991 Kalachakra Initiation for World Peace and eminent lamas from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism were offering teachings on the nature of mind. New York City’s usual jostle and heated tempo had dissolved as if by magic—everything seemed much less pressing. The amphitheater of Madison Square Garden and local venues had been transformed into a Himalayan hidden land…

“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 statistics for recovery were stacked against me, but I had zero interest in meeting Death. Back in 1985, I knew nothing about Buddhism or its teachings on how to use suffering to access an inner reservoir of equanimity as a basis for clear seeing and intelligent action. I was looking at myself and the world through a huge lens of hope and fear.

I was allergic to cats but volunteered to sit for Petey Cat, the pet of a close friend’s new sweetheart. The two lovebirds were stunned when I offered to hole up in Jane’s place through the July 4th holiday weekend so they could enjoy a romantic getaway. Perhaps the selfless wish for them to be happy was the spark required for igniting my karmic link with Tibetan Buddhism in this lifetime and for meeting the wisdom mind of Chogyam Trungpa.

Sogyal Rinpoche’s teachings that summer unfolded a magic carpet of Buddhist practices. When I returned home from Lerab Ling in the fall of 1992, several sangha members noticed how differently I sat on my cushion: my posture was “inspiring,” “so straight!” and “confident.” One sangha brother said bluntly, “You’re just much nicer to be with than before.” The teachings had exposed my timid heart and helped me to recognize self-deception, and how to cut through it.

The day with Zenkar Rinpoche began innocently enough with 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…

“Your guru is Chatral Rinpoche?” I asked in disbelief. This was more than a stroke of good luck for us Western dharma girls. HH Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche enjoyed a reclusive, ascetic lifestyle and he was notoriously hard to meet. His monastery, Rigzin Drubpe Ghatsal, nestled in the mountains of Yangleshö, overlooks sacred pools of turquoise waters populated with exotic fish, and is just steps above the cave in which Padmasambhava…

Someone else more spiritually attuned or more open might have recognized the dreamlike nature of that moment and awakened from this life’s deep sleep of ignorance. But for me the sight of Khenpo’s nakedness simply exposed my own uptightness and undue concern as the host of my teacher’s teacher to “do the right thing.” I relaxed gratefully.

How does a ‘nice Jewish girl,’ raised in the sheltered suburbs of New York, convey to a Tibetan Buddhist master her culturally conditioned phobic reaction to the very sound of the word ‘nun,’ and its implied austerity? I can’t say why ‘monk’ doesn’t sound as forbidding, lackluster, or as humorless as nun, but I do know my discomfort with the word was an expression of fear that had no real basis.

That same year marked Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s arrival in America. Students in New England and elsewhere were gathering to hear Rinpoche’s dharma talks on work, sex, and money, teachings that would have helped me release a few inhibitions for sure. However, I had yet to even hear the word “dharma.” Instead, my ears were attuned to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album whose lyric Here Comes the Sun…

My 7:30 a.m. flight to Phaplu was on hold—its time for departure anyone’s guess—and all afternoon flights at Tribuvan were cancelled. My useless thoughts scurried across the deserted lobby and crashed into the stacked metal rows of empty baggage carts. I sat on my bags and prayed for a clerk to appear behind the Nepal Airlines check-in desk. Nepal is the ideal country for teaching Westerners patience.

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.

The police kept calling and leaving messages for me at the guesthouse, requesting that I come down to the police station. Instead, I paid a visit to Tsikey Choling Rinpoche at Ka-Nying Gompa. The Buddhist teachings say how everything is illusion, from A to Z, including the Primordial Buddha. I needed a master’s help to see the illusory nature of my circumstances.

Chorten Khandro was inspired to orchestrate a “debate” between me and a long-nailed Tibetan tulku (incarnate lama). The tulku was annoyed that I had let my hair grow a few inches in marked contrast to the severe buzz cut I sported on a previous visit to Chorten Gompa. He felt it was an insult to the buddhadharma that I, a Buddhist nun, eschewed the discipline of a shaved head. Apparently, my short hair was a no-no and warranted investigation…

My circumstances underscored the practicality of a mind that wants for nothing in particular. I was born into New York’s suburban white middle class. Was it really possible for someone like me to hone a capacity for no preference? Such taming of habitual desires would require not only an indefatigable sense of humor, but tenacity too.