Interview with Ann Tashi Slater, Author of Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World.
Through her theme of “bardo” — the transition zone between death and rebirth described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Ann Tashi Slater offers a compelling contemplation of death that essentially offers new perspectives for living fully. Interweaving explorations of bardo in relation to marriage and friendship, parents and children, work and creativity, along with stories of her Tibetan ancestors and the Buddhist teachings on the fleeting nature of existence, Slater invites us to embrace impermanence in a powerful way, rooted in ancient wisdom.
Here are some insights from Ann Tashi Slater:
Describe for us what you came to understand about the Buddhist concept of “bardo” while attending your grandmother’s funeral in Darjeeling, India.
In Tibetan Buddhism, “bardo” means between-state. At my grandmother’s funeral in Darjeeling, lamas sat next to my grandmother’s body and read aloud from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, guiding her through the bardo between death and rebirth. The book’s teachings are also meant to be a roadmap for us as we travel through the bardo between birth and death—the one you and I are in now.
Chanting from the book, the lamas encouraged my grandmother to accept she was dead so she could move forward to rebirth. Listening to them, I saw how accepting reality can help us move forward as we journey through the bardo between birth and death. Perhaps we’ve been unwilling to admit that our job has grown meaningless or that our marriage has come to an end. Perhaps we’ve been in denial over the death of someone we love. Facing the truth can help us let go and move forward.
What other periods in your life brought the teachings about bardo into clear focus?
Some years ago, I contracted an illness called endocarditis, which is a life-threatening infection of the heart lining. I was hospitalized for six weeks and the doctors weren’t at all sure I was going to make it. Lying in the hospital, I recalled a story my grandmother had told me about her father. In 1912, he was riding his pony home to Darjeeling after completing a diplomatic mission in Tibet and was buried in an avalanche. He managed to work his arm up through the snow and wave his prayer beads; the men aboveground saw him and pulled him out.
A devout Buddhist, my great-grandfather knew The Tibetan Book of the Dead well. When he was buried in the snow, he took to heart one of the book’s central lessons about traveling through bardo—“accept reality but don’t give up”—and saved himself. We often think that acceptance means passivity but reflecting on the story about the avalanche, I realized that accepting “what is” allows us to take action (from a Buddhist perspective, this means actions of body, speech, and mind). Accepting his dire situation—rather than telling himself it wasn’t that serious or wasting precious minutes wishing he were riding along as usual on a sunny Himalayan morning—led my great-grandfather to thrust his arm through the snow.
Gravely ill in the hospital, I fantasized about spontaneous remission and daydreamed about returning to my old life, afraid that if I faced the truth of my situation I’d be overwhelmed by despair. Thinking about my great-grandfather’s story helped me accept the reality of my predicament but not give up hope.
Why are transitional times of “in-betweenness” particularly poignant, and can you give an example of how they can provide us with better insight?
In addition to the intervals between death and rebirth, and birth and death, “bardo” refers to transitional times when our ordinary reality is suspended. We fear the uncertainty of these periods, but they’re full of possibility for growth and insight. In bardo, The Tibetan Book of the Dead tells us, “the intellect becometh ninefold more lucid,” and “the mind is capable of being changed or influenced.” Fresh wisdom is available to us—if we’re open to it.
I gained a new understanding of this one fall afternoon in Darjeeling when I was doing research for a book and went to interview some lamas. The man who’d arranged the meeting told me the lamas weren’t available because they’d “gone to the cave” in the south of India and would remain there until spring.
Meditating in the cave, a kind of bardo, the lamas could discover new perspectives on themselves and on life. I realized that we have the same opportunity during transitional times—whether they’re voluntary (a new job or a new city) or involuntary (accident or illness). The idea of exploring outer space is very familiar to us; if we remain open in bardo, we can discover surprising insights as we travel our inner universe.
In your book, you emphasize that it’s not change that threatens us, but our resistance to it. Explain what you mean.
As humans, we’re wired to shy away from change. This is captured in a story my grandmother told me about a funeral she attended in Tibet in the 1920s where the dead person was trying to reenter his body, “trying to bring the corpse again to life.”
Between birth and death, we often long to go back to our old existence—our life before our children flew the nest, the happy years before our marriage fell apart—even though return is impossible and our clinging just makes us more miserable.
Although we feel existentially threatened by change, from a Buddhist perspective it’s our resistance to change that’s the greatest danger. Our resistance hinders the flourishing of our mind and spirit as we squander time and energy wringing our hands over the past and struggling against the present. Change will happen whether we want it to or not, so the more accepting we are of it, the happier we’ll be.
Why is it so difficult for our human species to let go of the desire for permanence, but what can happen when we do?
It’s hard for us to let go of our desire for permanence because we don’t want to lose what we love. We treasure our daily routines: walking the dog, cooking with our partner, playing with our child in the park, reading at a café. We cherish our family and friends.
At my grandmother’s funeral, Rinpoche, the head lama, told me, “Attachment is the root cause of all suffering.” Instinctively, we try to hold on to what we love, and this keeps us from finding the happiness we long for. We’re convinced that suffering comes from losing what we care about, even though fundamentally, it comes from striving to hold on to things that are ephemeral. Once we let go of our desire for permanence, we can open ourselves to whatever life brings, in flow and in love with this fleeting, beautiful world.
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Ann Tashi Slater is the author of Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World (Balance/Hachette), a Next Big Idea Club “Must-Read.” She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Oprah Daily, and many others. She presents and teaches workshops at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, Asia Society, and The American University of Paris. Learn more at anntashislater.com.