Ann Tashi Slater on Life’s Impermanence
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:03]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show, and learned endless amounts about
[0:09]storytelling, reinvention, and life itself, because when you talk about books, you're
[0:13]really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors, the best-selling, and the not-yet-discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read, and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy!
[0:27]And, Tashi Slater, is the author of Traveling in Bardo, the art of living in an impermanent
[0:32]world, which is an exploration of how we can navigate the inevitable changes that life
[0:36]brings and find lasting happiness.
[0:38]Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review,
[0:41]Oprah Daily, and many other publications, and she has spoken at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford,
[0:45]the American University of Paris, and the Ruben Museum of Himalayan Art.
[0:49]Enjoy our conversation.
[0:50]I hope it improves your life.
[0:53]Welcome, and thanks so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about your book, Traveling
[0:57]in Bardo, the art of living in an impermanent world.
[1:01]Congratulations.
[1:02]Thank you.
[1:03]Thank you so much, Zibi.
[1:04]It's really an honor and a pleasure to be here.
[1:05]Oh, tell listeners what your book is about.
[1:09]My book is about, it's related to the idea of Bardo, which is a Tibetan Buddhist idea,
[1:14]and Bardo means between state.
[1:16]And so it's a state of period of transition, uncertainty, change that we go through in life,
[1:21]and to bet and believe it's between death and rebirth, also between birth and death.
[1:26]And it also means any times when our ordinary reality is suspended, the life that we're
[1:32]used to, it could be an accident, it could be illness, and it could be the end of a friendship,
[1:38]divorce, empty nest.
[1:39]And it's not necessarily a bad thing.
[1:41]It could be like when you have a new baby, and your whole life has turned upside down,
[1:45]aging, or death of somebody we love, or ultimately our own end.
[1:51]And so there are many, many ways in which it applies to our lives.
[1:55]You take us into the narrative with the loss of your grandmother.
[1:59]Can you tell us more about her and your life together and the memory of her, let us get
[2:06]to know her?
[2:07]I first met my grandmother when I was three, and I was, she was living in Darjeeling.
[2:12]She was Tibetan living in Darjeeling, India.
[2:15]And then she would come see us sometimes in the states where I grew up, but I didn't go
[2:19]back to Darjeeling for 20 years.
[2:21]And I went back, and that's when we really connected.
[2:24]I think we kind of struggled a little like when she would come to the states when I was young,
[2:29]because I was very outspoken as a young American girl, and that wasn't really what she
[2:33]liked.
[2:34]And so we kind of blocked horns.
[2:37]And then when I went there after college, and my grandfather had just died, and I was
[2:42]sort of finding my way through my own kind of bardo after graduating, what was I going
[2:47]to do next?
[2:48]And we really connected.
[2:50]And she told me a lot of stories about her life, and I have such happy memories.
[2:54]She lived to 100, and I'm very happy memories of sitting with her in her living room, drinking
[3:00]Darjeeling tea, and hearing all these stories.
[3:02]And a lot of those, as you know, are part of the book, and really helped me to understand
[3:07]a lot of things about myself and about life.
[3:12]And when you were putting the book, thank you for that, by the way.
[3:16]When you were putting the book together and thinking about the lessons and the takeaways
[3:22]that you were like, okay, well, this definitely has to go in, you know, because you've
[3:25]learned so much.
[3:26]What are over like the top three that you said, yes, this has to go in?
[3:31]You know, it's funny, it's such a great question, because it was very clear to me, of
[3:35]course, not, you know, as an author yourself, it's not always clear like what you're
[3:39]going to write in each part.
[3:40]But these stories, it was very clear to me which one was going to go where.
[3:45]And so, for example, there's a chapter called Coming to Realize Your Dead, and it's related
[3:50]to the idea, in the bar to ideas that when we die, we don't know that we're dead or
[3:57]we don't recognize that we refuse to accept it.
[4:01]And the story she told me that I knew I was going to use for the beginning of that chapter
[4:04]was that when she was in Tibet in the 1920s, she went to a funeral.
[4:09]It was one of these sky burials, you know, where you have the body on the ground and
[4:12]the monks are chanting from the Tibetan book of the dead.
[4:16]And she said that the headlama there could see that the dead person was trying to get back
[4:21]into his body.
[4:22]And I thought always stayed with me because it was just so interesting metaphorically,
[4:26]because I thought that's what we do in life, you know, is like we don't want to let go
[4:30]of something.
[4:31]Let's say that our marriage has come to an end or our children have left home, you
[4:37]know, for we become empty nesters and we might be trying to get back to that life, you
[4:42]know, we don't want to let go of it even though it's actually totally impossible.
[4:46]And so we spend our time and energy on that.
[4:49]And then the idea in the bar to, you know, way of looking at things is that then we
[4:54]can't move forward, right?
[4:56]And so this, if we're not willing to accept that we're dead, this guy who was trying
[5:01]to get back into his body couldn't move forward to his next life, you know, in the belief
[5:06]in rebirth, for us, if we're not willing to let's say when my children left the nest,
[5:12]and I just couldn't let go of, you know, the years and the days we had together, then
[5:16]I cannot actually move forward, you know, to whatever is next for me.
[5:21]And so that's an example of, you know, yeah, in the Tibetan book of the dead, which
[5:27]you referenced throughout the book and is like a big sort of through line of what you
[5:32]learned there and sort of pairing it with modern life and all of that, all of the lessons
[5:36]and the wisdom of it.
[5:38]I feel like you said that there was a belief that the dead can hear for days after they've
[5:45]departed.
[5:46]Tell me about that.
[5:47]Is that true?
[5:48]Like is that explain?
[5:49]Well, the idea is that hearing is the last sense to go, right?
[5:54]And that the dead person can hear, you know, hear it.
[5:57]And so this Tibetan book of the dead is meant was composed written to be actually for both
[6:03]the dead and for the living.
[6:05]So of course, we can hear, you know, if we're sitting there, you know, listening to the
[6:09]guidance, you know, for example, from the Tibetan book of the dead.
[6:13]And the idea was my grandmother could also hear, and they sit right next to her.
[6:17]The llamas likes it right next to her body for the whole, all the days of the ceremonies,
[6:21]you know, before the cremation.
[6:25]I remember when I first heard that the book was for the living in the dead, I thought,
[6:28]you know, what in the world does that mean, you know, like how could it be for us too?
[6:34]And so this idea, like when we're listening to, you know, the monks say, and it's sort
[6:38]of, I talk about it in the book as kind of tough love powered by compassion, right?
[6:44]Because what they're saying is your dad, they're telling the dead person that, you know,
[6:48]like, you're dead and it's time to go.
[6:52]And for us, if we're listening to that, it might help us to reflect on ways in which
[6:57]that applies to our lives, you know, and so are we in a relationship that actually is
[7:04]over, right?
[7:05]Or are we in a job that has lost meaning for us, right?
[7:09]Or, you know, whatever it may be and how, what is the way forward for us?
[7:14]And so that is the way in which it's also for the living.
[7:17]Because the idea is that, you know, we certainly in the West, we tend to turn away from
[7:22]death literally or metaphorically.
[7:23]We don't want to face it.
[7:25]And the idea is that if we accept it, which whether or not we accept it, it's the fact
[7:31]of life, you know, that everything changes and everything ends.
[7:34]But if we do, then we can move forward, right, in the way that's right for us.
[7:39]And however much time, you know, we have here on the planet, right?
[7:43]And we can embrace change.
[7:46]It sounds such a simple, and it makes sense and yet it's so hard to do.
[7:52]It's really hard to do.
[7:55]I agree.
[7:56]I agree.
[7:57]You know, I'm always like, what should we say, practicing, but, you know, and I talk about
[8:01]that in the book, you know, is that, because people ask me, they're like, you know, yeah,
[8:05]it sounds kind of easy, but how exactly do we do that, right?
[8:08]And one way is actually through getting used to change, you know, because I think often
[8:13]we don't, we either just don't kind of notice it.
[8:17]You know, and I mean, in really simple ways, you know, like, like you can notice the end
[8:22]of the day, right, you can notice like that when you, you know, when you come home at night
[8:26]and it's the blue hour, and you can see in the twilight, and you can note that, like
[8:31]and pay attention to it, or you can notice the end of a weekend trip, you know, when you
[8:37]go away somewhere and you come back and often I think we sort of glide through those
[8:41]moments, you know, we don't necessarily pay attention to them, and the more we are accustomed
[8:47]to change, and I think those small changes, like noting them is cumulative, right, and
[8:54]so we can get used to it, and we'll be like, oh, I just had a wonderful time visiting
[8:59]my daughter, and now it's over, right, and usually like, right, and to just like take
[9:05]that in. Do you know what I mean? Rather than just like not really paying attention to it.
[9:12]All right, excellent advice. As as we're talking and gearing up to drop my, my twins at college,
[9:19]and it's a big, you know, life shift. I'm very aware of the impermanence. I get it, but a book
[9:26]like yours is just so key in, in putting things in the right context and not saying that
[9:33]changes, like, you can't say like, I don't like change, you know, I used to, I think when I was younger,
[9:39]I was like, well, I'm just like, don't really like change. I think you can't be like that.
[9:43]I think that's like the definition of life. Yeah, yeah, it's true. And also, you know, one of the
[9:48]things I really learned from all the research and years I've spent researching and writing about
[9:53]all of this is that we think, so for example, if you go to the story of the Buddha, right, so
[9:59]Buddha left it.
[10:00]palace. He left his father. He didn't want to become king. And he said, it's not the life
[10:04]for him. And he was going to go forth and seek enlightenment. And famously, you know, he said, like,
[10:10]we know that he said, okay, all life is suffering, right? And you see old age, sickness, death,
[10:16]right? And so I think we think those are the things that really make us suffer. And they do.
[10:22]There's no doubt about it is really sad, you know, whether it's our own or our parents or whatever.
[10:28]But what actually fundamentally makes us suffer the most is our resistance to that,
[10:34]right? Because we can't stop it. You know, we can't stop getting older. We can't, we certainly
[10:39]wouldn't want to stop our children leaving the nest, right? You know, you want you want them to have
[10:45]a life and move on and yeah, right? And so these things are going to happen. And we kind of double
[10:52]our suffering over them. It's normal. I think it's natural for us to feel sad about
[10:57]you know, these transitions often, if they're those kinds of transitions. But we make it
[11:01]worse for ourselves by resisting it. Yes. Right. Rather than being like, okay, I'm going to
[11:07]feel this. Excellent points. So there is a beautiful forward to your book by Danny Shapiro who is one
[11:14]of my favorite authors. I don't want to. How did you and Danny connect and how did you end up
[11:20]writing the forward? Danny and I connected. I host an interview series at Tricycle Magazine,
[11:29]which is related to all of what we're talking about here. It's about impermanence. It's about
[11:34]uncertainty, change transitions. And I interviewed Danny for that series. And that's how we met.
[11:42]And then she incredibly generously accepted to writing the forward. And so I just feel really
[11:50]fortunate about that. You know, and so she of course has gone through so much of this and is so
[11:54]so much wisdom around dealing with change and impermanence. And so I felt, you know, I feel like she
[12:01]is the perfect person to write the forward. I feel like her, her latest issues with her vision and
[12:08]everything are like it's like such a metaphor for the way she not only sees the world but lets
[12:13]the rest of us in, right? Like into how her perspective continually shifts and enables us to see
[12:21]something different. And she's even taking such a difficult experience and making it so beautiful.
[12:26]I mean, she's yeah, right? Yeah. And that's that's exactly right. And it's one of the things I also
[12:32]talk about, which is that I talk about it in terms of like we have voluntary and involuntary
[12:38]bardos, right? And so a voluntary bardo might be like if you and I went on a retreat,
[12:43]you know, or we, you know, meditate. And when I was in Darjeeling once and I was researching
[12:49]a book and I was going to go talk to these monks, you know, and someone had arranged the interview for
[12:53]me. And I got there and they weren't there and they weren't available. And so I asked the guy,
[12:58]I said, you know what, what happened? And he said, oh, they've gone to the cave. And I said, okay,
[13:04]I said, I'll wait, you know, and it was fall. And he said, oh, they're going to be there till spring.
[13:10]And so I guess I guess I'm not waiting. But, you know, Darjeeling's very cold. It's up in the
[13:16]Himalayas. And so they would go to the south of India for the winter. So point being that this is
[13:21]an example of a voluntary retreat where they go a voluntary bardo. So they go to the cave.
[13:26]They meditate for X number of months and we'll are open to new insight. You're opening yourself
[13:33]to new insight. And then we have these involuntary bardos like what Danny has gone through with
[13:38]her eyesight. And then other people like I write about in the book like Julia Alvarez,
[13:44]also, you know, Julia Alvarez, you know, woke up one morning and it turned out she had a detached
[13:49]retina. And she's ended up, you know, not having sight in that eye. And she said, and I
[13:55]thought this was similar to what Danny says, a really good example of like one of the ideas
[14:01]is that when we're in bardo, you know, we often resist and we're like, why me? And, you know,
[14:08]and we want out, you know, you just want to get out like as quickly as you can and make the
[14:14]pain or suffering stop, which is totally understandable. The one of the ideas is that our minds are very
[14:21]flexible, right? In bardo, when these things happen and that if we don't resist so much that we
[14:27]actually can have new insight and see new things. And what Julia told me is that she kept
[14:34]thinking like, why me? Why me? And then it shifted at some point. And she thought it was more like
[14:40]why all of us. And I had such a wonderful example of where when she kind of let down that
[14:46]that thing of like resisting of, you know, why does it have to be me and why can't this go away?
[14:51]She had this like very large vision of like this is a whole being part of humanity. And so I
[14:58]think that whether the the bardos were in are larger small, they open the door, you know, they open
[15:05]the way for us to see new things if we can just be in them. If you know what I mean? Like,
[15:11]you know, because often like our minds are elsewhere, you know, because we're thinking about,
[15:15]you know, where else we'd like to be, but if we can just inhabit them, if you will. And then
[15:20]see what we see of that. So and you've led this very international life. And you're now zooming from
[15:29]where Tokyo Tokyo? Oh my gosh. Okay. Explain how you've been all over. And what you've really learned from
[15:35]all of the experiences and cultures you've been a part of. Gosh, you know, it's a big question.
[15:41]Yes, sorry about that. In two minutes or less. That's how you about the world.
[15:46]Go, go. Yeah, I was born in Spain because my father was stationed at a naval base there. And I
[15:53]was there for a couple of years. Then I lived in Darjeeling with my grandparents. I lived in
[15:57]Kathmandu for a while because my parents were in the Peace Corps in the second group to go there.
[16:03]And then we moved to the States. And I grew up in New Jersey and then mostly in California.
[16:10]And then after college, you know, I'm a great francophile. And I studied French literature. And I
[16:16]love France. And I lived in Paris for a year after high school before college. And my plan was to
[16:22]go to Paris and be a writer. And I didn't. You know, I just sort of pivoted for a reason I couldn't
[16:29]really understand. And instead, I left for India. Yeah, after college. And I went to Darjeeling.
[16:36]And that's when you and I were talking about earlier where I spent all this time with my grandmother.
[16:40]And I think what really happened is that I had grown up, you know, it's very different in American
[16:45]now. But when I grew up, there were just very, very few Asians or Asian Americans. And I really
[16:51]tried so hard to fit in. And it was very difficult for me. And my mother wanting us to fit in,
[16:59]like didn't raise us with Buddhist rituals or anything like that. And so I never really
[17:04]understood what this other like half as we said then or like half Tibetan. My mother was
[17:09]Tibetan, my father, American. And it was half Tibetan, but half American. But I'm like,
[17:16]now we wouldn't say it in that way. But I was like, what's this other half? It was like
[17:21]a blank space on the map. And I think that's what finally happened is after college, I just felt
[17:27]like I needed to understand that what that other half of me was. And then I, so I
[17:34]I lived with my grandmother for a while in Darjeeling. I still was on my way to Paris. And then
[17:39]I decided to go to Tokyo to teach English for a few months to make money so I could start my life
[17:44]in Paris. And then I ended up falling in love with Japan. And ended up staying here. So I still
[17:52]go to Paris as often as I can. But that's what happened. And that's how I ended up living here.
[17:57]And speaking of between states, it's a perfect between space for me because it's sort of, you know,
[18:01]between like India, where my family is California, where I grew up. And I feel very at home here.
[18:08]I love them. You had a scene in the book where growing up people would ask you or not, you know,
[18:14]just like, well, where are you from? And when you would say Spain, they'd be like, okay,
[18:17]I get it. You're from Spain. And you're like, I don't have this. And you know, people are so quick
[18:22]to want to understand and like put people in a box and like, okay, well, you know, give me your
[18:28]whole story, right? And they don't want to necessarily wait. So the gift is the mix of everything
[18:35]and all of the inputs of who make them make us who we are. So yeah, it's very true. And I just
[18:41]think at that time, you know, it's much less because my classmates is saying, nobody looked like me,
[18:45]you know, nobody had dark hair and dark eyes and olive skin. And so yeah, I would never say that
[18:51]I was hard to bet. And because now, you know, like everyone knows who the Dalai Lama is. And,
[18:56]but you know, he had not been out of Tibet for very long when I was growing up. And people
[19:00]didn't know who he was. And it wasn't on the radar, you know, of the world's consciousness,
[19:05]the way it is now. So if I, if I said ever, you know, Tibet, then, you know, they didn't mean
[19:12]anything to most people. And so it just kind of made things more uncomfortable. I felt more
[19:18]uncomfortable. And then adults, of course, would know more about Tibet. But then they'd be like,
[19:23]oh, you know, do you believe in enlightenment? Or all these things I was completely
[19:28]unprepared to answer when I was 12 or whatever. So I don't know what's that. Right.
[19:36]Yeah. Yeah. So is there a state that you are going through now that you have to cling to some of
[19:44]these principles to remind you that it will get easier or maybe something difficult that you've
[19:50]that you've had to relinquish the low control over to get through. Another great question.
[19:56]I feel like I'm always going through stuff like that because, you know, I
[20:00]The whole idea of non-attachment, you know, I remember when my my grandmother died, you know,
[20:05]the funeral and the funeral ceremonies are very much full of rituals to related to non-attachment.
[20:12]So for example, when she right before her cremation, one of the final rituals they did was they
[20:17]tied a string, you know, they struck tie a string to her thumb and then we hold the other end of it.
[20:22]And her end was black and orange was white. And then the llama came and cut the string.
[20:27]And the idea was cutting our attachment to her, her attachment to this world,
[20:33]our attachment to the life that we had with her. And I always, you know, in the the head llama,
[20:39]Rinpoche told me, he said, you know, he says, attachment is is the root of all suffering.
[20:44]And I always remember that because I think it's true. And I feel that day to day often because
[20:48]you know how there are things you really want, things, you know, either things you want to have
[20:53]happen or things you want your partner to do or ways you want people to behave that maybe they're
[21:00]not or whatever it may be. And so I find it a very really constant, what shall I say? My constant
[21:07]work or a constant challenge to to be aware of that and really to let go, let go of that attachment.
[21:14]And it might another thing my grandmother used to say and it took me a while to understand that she
[21:17]said, you know, what is to happen will happen? She says, and what is to not happen will not happen.
[21:23]And I thought, well, yeah. Yeah, that's certainly true. And I just didn't get it. But,
[21:30]you know, years later, and when I was writing this book, I really understood what she was saying,
[21:35]which is that you do everything you can. You know, you do everything you can towards what is aligned
[21:41]for you and what you want to have happen in your life that's good, right? And once you've done what
[21:46]you can, then what will happen will happen, right? So we can't guarantee the outcomes. And that's
[21:51]I finally understood which she meant. And I try to remember that, you know, it's just to be
[21:56]to really try to be in a more equanimity. And, you know, because you know how you see that like you
[22:03]get some email and it's like not that nice. And then you feel bad. And then you get one that's like
[22:07]really nice. And then you feel good. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. You know, kind of at the
[22:13]at the whim of these different things rather than having some sort of state of balance or
[22:17]equanimity. And so I keep that in mind. And I try to, I try to work towards that. I love that.
[22:26]Well, and thank you so much. Thank you for coming on for sharing your wisdom. Your grandmother's
[22:32]wisdom. And so much with the rest of us as we navigate the chapters that we're in. So thank you so
[22:39]much. Thank you. Thank you, Zippy. And I really appreciate all the wisdom that you share and certainly
[22:46]around between states. And I can't wait for your new book, which will illuminate it even more.
[22:52]You know, because you certainly know a lot about what it's like to go through all this. And so
[22:56]thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks so much. All right. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening
[23:05]to totally booked with Zippy. Formerly, momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show,
[23:11]tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens. And spread the word.
[23:17]Thanks so much. Oh, and bye the books.