Traveling in Bardo : The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Can we experience a state between life and death here on earth? Author Ann Tashi Slater returns to the Rubin to discuss how her experiences with illness embodied Padmasambhava’s concept of the bardo, as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The evening begins with a tour of the exhibition The Second Buddha: Master of Time with curator Elena Pakhoutova. Then Ann Tashi Slater will share her personal experience of illness as bardo and how wisdom from her Tibetan family helped her survive. Ann will read from her essay “Traveling in Bardo,” originally published in AGNI Magazine; at the end of the night, each ticket-holder will receive a signed copy of the essay.

This Himalayan Heritage program coincides with a free Spiral Music performance by Tibetan musicians Tendor and Tenzin Choeying in the lobby from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

About the Speaker

Ann Tashi Slater’s work has been published by The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, AGNI, and Huffington Post, among many others. Her writing appears in American Dragons: Twenty-Five Asian American Voices (HarperCollins) and Women in Clothes (Penguin); her translation of fiction by Reinaldo Arenas was published in Old Rosa (Grove). Current projects include a bardo-related novel based on her Tibetan family history and a memoir about a pilgrimage to her ancestral homeland. A longtime resident of Tokyo, she teaches at a Japanese university.