A Hundred Thousand White Stones: An Ordinary Tibetan's Extraordinary Journey
Autor Kunsung Dolma, Kunsang, Kunsang Dolmaen Limba Engleză Paperback – 8 iul 2013
A Hundred Thousand White Stones is the fearlessly told, unvarnished story of life as a Tibetan woman and refugee. Kunsang Dolma writes from her heart of the hardship and struggle she experienced as a girl in Tibet, as a woman in India, and as an immigrant refugee in America. Yet despite the many moments of sadness her story contains, she manages to find hope and levity in her memory of even the worst of circumstances.
A Hundred Thousand White Stones offers an honest, first-person assessment of what is gained in pursuing life in the developed world, and what is lost.
A Hundred Thousand White Stones offers an honest, first-person assessment of what is gained in pursuing life in the developed world, and what is lost.
Preț: 81.22 lei
Preț vechi: 110.39 lei
-26% Nou
Puncte Express: 122
Preț estimativ în valută:
15.55€ • 16.17$ • 13.03£
15.55€ • 16.17$ • 13.03£
Carte indisponibilă temporar
Doresc să fiu notificat când acest titlu va fi disponibil:
Se trimite...
Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781614290711
ISBN-10: 1614290717
Pagini: 256
Dimensiuni: 154 x 229 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.4 kg
Editura: Wisdom Publications (MA)
ISBN-10: 1614290717
Pagini: 256
Dimensiuni: 154 x 229 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.4 kg
Editura: Wisdom Publications (MA)
Cuprins
Introduction
1. The Invasion
2. My Parents
3. Fresh-Air Childhood
4. A Blessing from the Panchen Lama
5. A Little Education
6. Life in the Village
7. Tibetan Cooking
8. Losar
9. My Father’s Drinking
10. A Tragic Turning Point
11. How I Became a Nun
12. The Meditation Retreat and the Ominous Dream
13. Another Death
14. Preparing for India
15. Escape
16. Welcome to Nepal
17. My First Taste of Freedom
18. Dharamsala and the Tibetan Transit School
19. Life on My Own
20. Fiasco at the Disco
21. Evan Returns to America
22. The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done
23. My Fiancée Visa Is Denied
24. Evan Returns
25. A Final Push
26. A New Life
27. Disappointment with My New Life
28. Tenzin Yangchen
29. Tenzin Yangzom
30. My Struggle to Return to Tibet
31. Reunited with My Family
1. The Invasion
2. My Parents
3. Fresh-Air Childhood
4. A Blessing from the Panchen Lama
5. A Little Education
6. Life in the Village
7. Tibetan Cooking
8. Losar
9. My Father’s Drinking
10. A Tragic Turning Point
11. How I Became a Nun
12. The Meditation Retreat and the Ominous Dream
13. Another Death
14. Preparing for India
15. Escape
16. Welcome to Nepal
17. My First Taste of Freedom
18. Dharamsala and the Tibetan Transit School
19. Life on My Own
20. Fiasco at the Disco
21. Evan Returns to America
22. The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done
23. My Fiancée Visa Is Denied
24. Evan Returns
25. A Final Push
26. A New Life
27. Disappointment with My New Life
28. Tenzin Yangchen
29. Tenzin Yangzom
30. My Struggle to Return to Tibet
31. Reunited with My Family
Recenzii
“Especially now, when Tibetans are sacrificing their lives for their collective story to be heard, it is important that Kunsang Dolma so honestly shares her personal story. This ordinary Tibetan’s extraordinary journey opens our hearts wider with each step in her shoes.”
—Kathleen Willis Morton, author of The Blue Poppy and the Mustard Seed
“Refreshingly honest and brave, this book leaves us looking at our lives with completely new eyes.”
—Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha
“Intimate, unpretentious, and insightful, this is a thoroughly contemporary story, told with clarity, about Tibetan pasts, presents, and futures.”
—Sienna Craig, author of Horses Like Lightning
“Kunsang Dolma’s journey is indeed extraordinary, born with grace and without rancor some of the most heartbreaking circumstances imaginable.”
—Tricycle
—Kathleen Willis Morton, author of The Blue Poppy and the Mustard Seed
“Refreshingly honest and brave, this book leaves us looking at our lives with completely new eyes.”
—Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha
“Intimate, unpretentious, and insightful, this is a thoroughly contemporary story, told with clarity, about Tibetan pasts, presents, and futures.”
—Sienna Craig, author of Horses Like Lightning
“Kunsang Dolma’s journey is indeed extraordinary, born with grace and without rancor some of the most heartbreaking circumstances imaginable.”
—Tricycle
Notă biografică
Born in 1980, Kunsang Dolma spent the first 18 years of her life in a poor remote village in the Tibetan borderlands. After becoming a nun, she escaped Tibet first to Nepal and then India. After giving up her nun's robes, she moved to the United States, and she now lives in Maine with her American husband and two daughters.
Extras
Introduction
Like most of Tibet’s refugees, I am neither a politician nor a saint; I am much like people from anywhere else in the world except for the experiences I’ve been through. I want to share my story because I don’t know of any ordinary Tibetans like me who have spoken up about what we’ve seen and what’s in our hearts. The process of going back through my history to write this book has not been easy. Some parts have been painful for me to revisit; many of the events in this book are ones I wish I could simply forget. For most of my life, I was ashamed of some of these experiences and told no one about them, not even my family or closest friends.
I was born in 1980 in a quiet village in the Amdo region of Tibet, where I lived until becoming a Buddhist nun as a teenager, a decision that led me to make the long and dangerous journey over the Himalayan Mountains into India to see the Dalai Lama. Although I gave up my nun’s robes there under unfavorable circumstances, I did meet a good man, now my husband, leading to a family and new life in America.
The life I grew up with in Tibet was very simple. When I say“simple,” I mean that we had what many people would consider a low standard of living, a life of poverty. I was born in a place without electricity or plumbing, with no cars, no telephones, and no television. Transportation was on foot or horseback. People knew almost nothing about the world outside of their own village and a few villages beyond it.
Even today, little has changed. Electricity was introduced to my village when I was around eleven or twelve years old. (Clocks and calendars were not widely used, so I’ll have to guess my age and the dates of most of the events of my childhood.) When I was able to go back to Tibet in 2010, the use of electricity remained very limited, and there was still no plumbing. I saw that my family members do have clocks and calendars now. I’m not sure how much use they get though; the calendars have yellowed with age over the years since they were put up, and the clocks are motionless, each house stuck at a different time.
As a child, I didn’t think our way of life in Tibet was any good at all. We worked hard with little to show for it, and our problems were deep, serious problems. Compared to the difficulties of daily life in Tibet, when Americans complain about a rough day, I can’t help but think, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
As I get older, I’ve come to see things a little differently than I did as a child. Leaving Tibet was not the end of my struggles in life; the struggles only changed. Although I know firsthand that Tibet is not a utopia and never was, people in my village were mostly pretty happy despite our circumstances. My favorite part of the traditional way of life was the close connection between family and friends. No matter what happened or how much we argued, we felt close. We lived and worked together, sharing our fortunes. Looking back on all my experiences, it seems like that feeling of personal connection with others is the real key to happiness. I wish now that I could have back the life I left behind.
Like most of Tibet’s refugees, I am neither a politician nor a saint; I am much like people from anywhere else in the world except for the experiences I’ve been through. I want to share my story because I don’t know of any ordinary Tibetans like me who have spoken up about what we’ve seen and what’s in our hearts. The process of going back through my history to write this book has not been easy. Some parts have been painful for me to revisit; many of the events in this book are ones I wish I could simply forget. For most of my life, I was ashamed of some of these experiences and told no one about them, not even my family or closest friends.
I was born in 1980 in a quiet village in the Amdo region of Tibet, where I lived until becoming a Buddhist nun as a teenager, a decision that led me to make the long and dangerous journey over the Himalayan Mountains into India to see the Dalai Lama. Although I gave up my nun’s robes there under unfavorable circumstances, I did meet a good man, now my husband, leading to a family and new life in America.
The life I grew up with in Tibet was very simple. When I say“simple,” I mean that we had what many people would consider a low standard of living, a life of poverty. I was born in a place without electricity or plumbing, with no cars, no telephones, and no television. Transportation was on foot or horseback. People knew almost nothing about the world outside of their own village and a few villages beyond it.
Even today, little has changed. Electricity was introduced to my village when I was around eleven or twelve years old. (Clocks and calendars were not widely used, so I’ll have to guess my age and the dates of most of the events of my childhood.) When I was able to go back to Tibet in 2010, the use of electricity remained very limited, and there was still no plumbing. I saw that my family members do have clocks and calendars now. I’m not sure how much use they get though; the calendars have yellowed with age over the years since they were put up, and the clocks are motionless, each house stuck at a different time.
As a child, I didn’t think our way of life in Tibet was any good at all. We worked hard with little to show for it, and our problems were deep, serious problems. Compared to the difficulties of daily life in Tibet, when Americans complain about a rough day, I can’t help but think, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
As I get older, I’ve come to see things a little differently than I did as a child. Leaving Tibet was not the end of my struggles in life; the struggles only changed. Although I know firsthand that Tibet is not a utopia and never was, people in my village were mostly pretty happy despite our circumstances. My favorite part of the traditional way of life was the close connection between family and friends. No matter what happened or how much we argued, we felt close. We lived and worked together, sharing our fortunes. Looking back on all my experiences, it seems like that feeling of personal connection with others is the real key to happiness. I wish now that I could have back the life I left behind.