Tibetan Bardo, Power of the Imagination, Dialogue Across Generations & Borders

My latest newsletter, about work in Kyoto Journal and Guernica, a Princeton webinar, and Japanese pilgrim-poet Matsuo Bashō.

In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is an intermediary state, like between death and rebirth. It can also refer to times when our ordinary reality is suspended — like now, during the epidemic. I explore this in “In the Cave,” an essay for Kyoto Journal about bardo, COVID-19, and the Japanese concept of ma: negative space with creative potential.

“Our challenges during COVID-19 may include isolation and illness, fear and grief, a profound longing to return to the way things were. But if we keep our minds calm and focused, we might unearth wisdom: consciousness of impermanence, appreciation of our interconnectedness, acceptance of what comes in life.”

You can read the piece by clicking on the image below:

See the beautiful new issue of Kyoto Journal for more about ma. And if you’d like to read more about bardo in our everyday lives, see Traveling in Bardo, my AGNI essay about a near-fatal illness I experienced as a bardo. The piece interweaves Buddhist wisdom with my Tibetan family history and my life in Tokyo.

I loved talking with Porochista Khakpour in an interview for Guernica about imagination, creative freedom, and Khakpour’s new book, Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity. Imagination, she says, “is an important word for our current moment. It’s tied to a moral impulse or collective morality, and we need to be able to tap into that.”

In a Princeton alumni webinar — Where We Come from and Where We’re Going — I talked with writer Amanda Dennis about my new memoir. We discussed identity, dialogue across generations and borders, and how we connect with our cultures of origin. I hope you’ll have a chance to watch, and I’d love to hear your stories!

Teaching a writing workshop earlier this summer to high school students in HEC Paris’s High Impact Communication for Youth program was an inspiration. We looked at the power of the written word, how finding our voices allows us to not only engage with ourselves but with the world.

Summer in Tokyo is glass wind chimes, cicadas, wooden blinds to keep out the heat and let in air. It’s cold soba noodles and barley tea, neighborhood festivals with dancing and drumming. I love reading haiku by pilgrim-poet Matsuo Bashō; in summer, I always return to this one, translated by Donald Keene:

The ancient pond

A frog leaps in

The sound of the water.

All best,

Ann

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