Description
From one of the central figures in Buddhism''s introduction to the West and the founder of Tricycle magazine comes a brilliant memoir of forging one's own path that Pico Iyer calls unflinching and indispensable.
The daughter of an artist, Helen Tworkov grew up in the heady climate of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism; yet from an early age, she questioned the value of Western cultural norms. Her life was forever changed when she saw the iconic photo of Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese monk who, seated in meditation, set himself on fire to protest his government's crackdown on the Buddhist clergy. Tworkov realized that radically different states of mind truly existed and were worth exploring. At the age of twenty-two, she set off for Japan, then traveled through Cambodia, India, and eventually to Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal.
Set against the arresting cultural backdrop of the sixties and their legacy, this intimate self-portrait depicts Tw
