This interview is just one of the many that took place for “A New Generation of Buddhist Young Practitioners,” the cover feature of Mandala July-August 1998:

How did you originally meet the Dharma?

My father’s best friend, Leroy, a hippie kind of guy, is a Kagyu practitioner. He and I had a strong bond, and eventually he became my godfather. He was really into the Dharma and his teacher was Thrangu Rinpoche. He had prayer flags around the house, two altars inside and several statues. I remember looking at the prayer flags and statues and feeling a sense of awe and wonder.

The other way I was introduced was through my grandmother, who wanted to study Zen Buddhism. There was a center near us that taught meditation, and when I was a kid she would take me there. When I saw the monks meditating and heard them chanting, I always wondered what they were doing. Also at that center there was a large statue of the Buddha in the woods. A sincere feeling, almost blissful, came over me when I was near the statue.

At a later point, my father dabbled a bit in Tibetan Buddhism. He bought lots of books. He ended up feeling most connected with the “be right here right how” feeling of Zen. He was really grounded in the mindfulness aspect of Buddhism and meditated on and off throughout my childhood.

Would you say you were Buddhist when you were growing up?

No, but I was inclined to study religions. When I was 12 I studied the Jehovah’s Witness religion with my best friend for two years. My friend felt that Buddhism was a cult and was evil, and from a young age I found myself defending Buddhism, telling her that wasn’t what it’s about. I finally discovered those paths weren’t for me, that I just wanted to be me.

One interesting thing is that I was given a poster of Four-armed Chenrezig when I was 13 and I put it high above my bed next to posters of rock stars. I wondered if my friends would think I was weird, but I always felt an extreme feeling of safety and protection, as if it was my mother above me.

What kinds of problems did you face when you were growing up?

The biggest difficult was really understanding who I was, really loving myself. It’s still difficult for me now, but there was a lot of insecurity in social circles. It was such a cool thing to talk about other people behind their backs and to be mean. The biggest conflict was that I felt in my heart I really wasn’t like that. I wanted to love other people, but there was so much of that peer pressure and social dynamics around, it corroded other people and it corroded me inside. In that social stratum, which was middle to upper class white, everything revolved around how you looked, what clothes you wore, who your boyfriend was, so overall, my biggest problem was loving myself, finding out who I was.

Did you have a clear understanding of what was going on?

I felt a lot of jealousy, comparison and self-inadequacy. It was always going on. To protect myself from that kind of environment I constantly judged others and felt this jealousy. In my first serious relationship, which was pretty unhealthy, I always felt there was a part of me that wanted to be a good person. At that time we both had a lot of anger.

I faced a lot of problems: unhealthy relationship, peer pressures, although I never did drugs or drank. It was hugely popular to drink and do drugs, so it was unusual that I decided not to go that route. To this day I don’t do any of that. I was addicted to other things, like too much sex, doing mischievous things and getting myself into trouble, not being able to communicate well and generally having negative attitudes. I was never destructive or violent. I just felt confused, like, “Help me!” This carried on into college, and about a year and a half ago I saw all my dad’s Dharma books and I decided, “I want to have a better mind. I want to know how to be healthy.”

Did you feel your mind was sick at that time?

Yes, definitely. I’ve always been a very emotional person, too. I picked up The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and I felt an immediate sense of recognition. I felt like I can actually relieve myself of all this and can really work with my mind. I realized I can do something with all this negativity, fear and anxiety.

The books were too advanced for me at that time and I didn’t understand what all the words meant. I ended up reading Zen books and a couple months later went to some Zen meditation classes.

Had you ever done any other kind of therapy to work with your emotions?

I did some therapy with a great healer, something called biomechanics healing. You’re supposed to get all your emotional “stuff” out there and observe the emotion outside of yourself. After two months of doing this, I finally realized in my own mind, “Oh – I’m not really all of that.” Part of my mind was very clear, and it was the first time I ever felt a sense of peace. I began to reconnect with nature by going to the ocean and doing other things, whereas in high school I had lost the connection I’d had with nature as a child.

What really hooked me in the Dharma is recognition of my desire to be a healer. I really want to put my hands on people and heal them. I went to massage school at that time. I remember seeing pictures of the Dalai Lama, and my karma began to ripen.

Somehow Tibetan Buddhism seemed very different from Zen Buddhism. I felt this powerful, blissful connection to it. Even when I saw prayer flags my heart would be filled with this strong feeling of awe. I recognized that the feeling I got when I saw pictures of His Holiness and when I was healing people was the same. I saw I had the potential to be a good healer, but I didn’t see I could be like His Holiness, I didn’t see the Buddha within. In the faces of the gurus and the colors, I always saw so much compassion, so much love and kindness. I would wonder, “What is this really about? Who are these people?”

With what aspect of the Dharma do you feel most connected?

It’s definitely the compassion, more so than meditative concentration, or even more than the profound wisdom aspect, in which I sometimes feel lacking! It’s that recognition that within every person there is this beautiful light.

There are many paths in the world that go for the same thing and use different methods and ways to get there. But this awesome compassion and mind-piercing wisdom keep me coming back. I recognize a part of that in myself. A part of my true self is that, without all the obscurations. The loving compassion, the ability to let go of attachments, the ability to be free and have the independence to have self-love, confidence, security. These things are most important to me. The healing aspect and some fascination with the mystic aspect, like yoginis, appeal to me.

Many of the practitioners are so kind and so loving, and their simple lives are so rich with love, devotion, wisdom. Good people and inspiring things come out of this path.

What is the biggest obstacle to your practice?

My ego! Me! Nobody else is blocking me. I have support to practice and all the options, but it’s mainly the emotional obscurations and inability to see clearly. And also there must be not enough merit to drive it all in there and focus my mind.

You mentioned that Dharma gives you freedom. Freedom from what?

Freedom from attachments, freedom from concepts of how we think we should be, or what we should be, or what we think or want our lives to be. To me, freedom is freedom from all the thought processes that cause the diseases, the obscurations, the emotions, that cause us to habitually react to all the stimuli. Freedom is having focus in the mind, as well as the compassion in the heart to not have to grasp. Freedom is when you can finally sit down with yourself and work on what the mind is really about. If you have the patience and compassion, the freedom will come slowly, I believe.

I think Dharma is the method and the teaching and the wisdom that show you this freedom and incorporate the idea that in some ways we create our own reality with our thoughts. The Dharma presents these tools and shows the way to do it. Buddha did it this way, my gurus did it this way – they’re free. Practitioners do it this way – they’re on the path. If you want to be free, it’s a very precious ticket.

How do you find a balance between taking it slowly in this path, so that you can absorb what you are learning, and also knowing not to waste the preciousness of this life?

That’s a tricky point. On one hand it’s important to take it slowly and relax, because sometimes I read some lam-rim and I think, “Oh man, I’ve got to get on top of this.” But then I feel like I’m forcing myself to take on these concepts I don’t realize.

If you’re blessed to truly realize that each moment is precious, and you’re free from those disturbances, then go for it. That’s what we’re working towards – that space where we are really free, where we can put the imprints in our minds to really be free.

Do you have much interest in making a lot of money, being famous, getting the right husband or house?

I thought for a long time, and still have an ego idea, that I would like to be the best healer in the world. On a practical level I think I was recognizing my own potential to truly benefit others. The more I think about it I just want to be a good healer. I have a fantasy to be a really great healer, to be able to heal anyone, and that I suppose is a desire for fame or recognition.

As far as a lover or husband, I think so. I’m not sure about kids. If I were to have kids later down the road, like 10 or 12 years, maybe. No hurry. Part of me wants a stable life, like with a simple house – I mean, I don’t idealize it like the American dream, but I think it would be nice to function in the world as a simple person who does her work and gets the job done. I hope that way to create good causes for the future.

On the other hand I see there is a lot of negative karma inside of me that could be purified, could be thrown out. Who knows what’s in there? There’s so much purification that could be done.

In some teachings they say something like, “Contemplate the unborn nature of awareness,” and when I think about that, it means there might be some things we are aware of to some extent, but just imagine what we could be aware of if we were free of these obscurations and negativities. Then I wouldn’t even be focused on whether or not I would be secure, or have a lover in the future, or whether I would bring another being into the world.