Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

by Faith Adiele

A wry account of the road from Harvard scholarship student to ordination as northern Thailand's first black Buddhist nun. Reluctantly leaving behind Pop Tarts and pop culture to battle flying rats, hissing cobras, forest fires, and decomposing corpses, Faith Adiele shows readers in this personal narrative, with accompanying journal entries, that the path to faith is full of conflicts for even the most devout. Residing in a forest temple, she endured nineteen-hour daily meditations, living on a single daily meal, and days without speaking. Internally Adiele battled against loneliness, fear, hunger, sexual desire, resistance to the Buddhist worldview, and her own rebellious Western ego. Adiele demystifies Eastern philosophy and demonstrates the value of developing any practice―Buddhist or not. This "unlikely, bedraggled nun" moves grudgingly into faith, learning to meditate for seventy-two hours at a stretch. Her witty, defiant twist on the standard coming-of-age tale suggests that we each hold the key to overcoming anger, fear, and addiction; accepting family; redefining success; and re-creating community and quality of life in today's world. 10 illustrations.

Genres: Memoir, Buddhism, Nonfiction, Religion, Biography Memoir, Travel, Spirituality

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

After almost failing out of Harvard - the culprit, a nervous breakdown brought on by trying to navigate the racism of Boston, the search to find her identity - Adiele goes to Thailand for a year, eventually taking refuge as a Buddhist nun. Despite the fact that Adiele doesn't really consider herself Buddhist, and doesn't really practice or possess any particular faith, she does devote herself to the precepts of the convent while she's there. Much of the book, therefore, explores the meaning - the usefulness - of meditation, of overcoming bodily suffering, of recognizing anger, fear, and discomfort and letting them do what they will. It's a book about religious practice written by someone who's not certain of its benefit until proven.

Which is fitting, since the leader of the convent took refuge to prove Buddhism was wrong. (It didn't turn out to the be the sham she'd expected.)

But to say the book is about Buddhist practice at a convent in Thailand is to reduce it to a mere shadow of itself. The book is about what it means to embrace non-violence when you are African-American and more drawn to Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman and Super Afro (the comic book hero Faith made for herself as a child) than to Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. It's about the human responsibility to the animal world, especially when that world frightens us, and to consider if there is wisdom in killing spiders. It's about the promise of college and the failings of college, and the global world so many of us wish we didn't live in after all. It's about not lying, and a four things you do before you punch someone in the face, and learning from grandmothers who have locked their anger away.

It's beautiful. I inhaled it. And I will treasure it for years to come.

[Nnedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. I loved the detail, the story, the travel, the commentary on race and gender, and of course spirituality, I loved soooo much about it. Absolutely intriguing. My only issue is that at times the storytelling was too circular and I'd just want it to move forward. Also, I found the side notes (or whatever they were called) way way too distracting and often just skipped them. It's a complex layered narrative that deserves every award it received.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting memoir about both this young woman and the Thai nuns whose order she joins for a while. However, I think the author did her tale a disservice by using the side notes not just for quotes or background info, but also for part of the story. That affectation made for disjointed reading.

[Mary Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

...a unique memoir. As a scientist, I will reach into sciences for metaphors to describe my feelings. This book travels a trajectory from the astrophysical realm to the molecular and subatomic; from the big bang to the end of days, all while never leaving home.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THAILAND’S “FIRST BLACK BUDDHIST NUN” TELLS HER STORY

In the Preface to this 2004 book, she wrote, “Despite the name Faith, I’m an unlikely candidate for spiritual aspirations… I’m not Asian… I’m not some New Ager on a holy trek to the food co-op… I don’t particularly believe in religion…. I am black. Physically soft. Pierced!... addicted to African dance grooves, snacks involving processed flour AND sugar, jewelry, and bad television… Understandably, friends and strangers ask questions… ‘Wasn’t it hot? Weren’t you lonely? Weren’t you scared?’ The answers are all inevitably yes… yes, there were times when I shuddered and sobbed in a Southeast Asian night … Times I detested the Buddha and Asia and so-called personal growth. Times when nothing was more terrifying than the prospect of sitting with the contents of my own mind for nineteen hours a day. But… I was even more afraid of failure. And why not? It seems downright un-American to fail.” (Pg. 13-14)

She explains, “There were two reasons I found myself in the Thai forest, stripped of my curls and eyebrows and sporting strange undergarments. The first was, surprisingly, comfort. I’d been to northern Thailand before---my junior year of high school… For me at that time, Thailand was a place that worked in a way that America… did not.” (Pg. 14) She continues, “The second reason… was failure… I’d fastened my sights on home, on the last great bastion of American meritocracy---a university education. And it was there, at Harvard… to which I had won a scholarship, that I would learn failure… my own stunning failure that nearly killed me… Besides nearly killing me, college taught me several things. Namely, that external identity mattered. Being black mattered… Being the biracial child of a single, white mother determined which whites would use me… to integrate certain spaces and which blacks would turn their backs, stage-whispering about ‘messed-up Oreos. Being female determined the number of times I would cross my professors’ minds, and the number of men who would grope me… Yes, the outside mattered, and it mattered more than what I believed did.” (Pg. 23-24)

In college, she told a rich laywoman and a monk from Sri Lanka that she was in Thailand “on a college-year abroad program, and … in addition to taking classes at Chiang Mai University, I was conducting fieldwork… I’m in the process of drafting a questionnaire and identifying nuns to interview. When I return to the U.S., this research will form the basis of my senior thesis.” The rich laywoman advised her, “If the heart is peaceful… then you’re at peace, whether you’re in the temple or without. And if the heart is not, you won’t find peace here.” Faith, admits, “in the end it was she, with her quiet comment addressed at the end of an afternoon spent sparring with a scholar-monk, who nearly shook me… Peace was here, along with whatever it would take to heal what ailed me.” (Pg. 51-52)

She comments, “I had decided that painstaking academic research was not my interest. Women as subjects of study, words on the page, the observer role of the anthropologist, were all losing their allure. To be honest, I was seeking strategies for living, for participating in life. Prior to my ordination, I was constantly being drawn into debate---at the university, in the marketplace… Thai men and some women were eager to dismiss the spiritual aspirations of women. Their first strategy was to cite scriptural precedent, and Buddha’s apparent disinclination to ordain women.” (Pg. 91)

Her Thai literature professor told her, “the order of ‘bhikkhuni has died out in Southeast Asia… there can be no higher ordination for women in Thailand, since only a bhikkhuni can ordain another bhikkhuni.” She realizes, “Suddenly historical precedents didn’t matter; it was all about current social realities… we’re stuck with something called ‘nuns,’ glorified laywomen in white. I countered that the ordination lineage for man has also died throughout Southeast Asia periodically, and that only by traveling to other countries to revive it has the tradition lasted this long.” (Pg. 92-93)

But Ajarn Boon (a “male, elder, professor, and former monk”; pg. 37) later “advised me to avoid such arguments. Historical precedents were not the issue. Women have the power to change the current reality. As he saw it, the Buddha was a radical, a social revolutionary who liberated women and attacked the excesses of Hinduism: ‘In a single gesture, He erased the entire caste system,’” (Pg. 93)

She points out, “We Westerners make much of Thailand’s so-called contradictions. Imagine---a country with so many monks and prostitutes! We shake our heads. Raised on dichotomy… we visit jeweled temples by day and opium dens/sex bars by night. In our narrative, it is the Thai who are delightfully hypocritical, who can’t seem to reconcile themselves. Male travel writers (dedicated journalists all, who never fail to cover Thailand’s flesh trade) are downright dismayed to see bar girls give alms or wear Buddhist amulets. Look at that---prostitutes with spiritual lives! In our narrative, the global economy and local pimps and johns … have nothing to do with employment; profanity resides deep within the female body. What we don’t see if the constant battle Thais wage against the profanity threatening to overtake their women… The primary concern for girls and young women is to appear … proper…Before and after my ordination, I spend a great deal of my time trying to mimic this proper behavior so that stereotypes about American and black women won’t put me at the kind of risk from Thai men that Asian stereotypes put Thai women at risk from Western men. It doesn’t work. There is no safety for any color body… Thailand teaches me that the body does matter. It teaches me the power of desire, which at times is just another word for hatred.” (Pg. 97-98)

She acknowledges, “Prior to my ordination, life teemed with reasons not to pursue anything difficult; I was tired, my stomach hurt, work weas a chore. Now I see what people mean about Buddhism being in the practice, in the doing. It’s a bit like being a writer, though one can make an argument for writing while not writing (a Zen-like statement if ever there was one!). Figuratively, to be Buddhist, one has to be moving as a Buddhist. If one lies down on the job, one is not being Buddhist, regardless of faith.” (Pg. 164)

She states, “When I move into the forest in northern Thailand, shaving my head and eyebrows, donning white robes, and ordaining as ‘maechi,’ I agree to live by ten precepts. When I leave the ‘wat,’ I will become a devout laywoman, meaning that I will exchange my ‘maechi’ vows for the five basic precepts to which Buddhist citizens are supposed to adhere: to refrain from killing; stealing; sexual offense; lying and harmful speech; and consuming intoxicants. Even as I take the five Householder Precepts, new stubble chafing my neck, I will recognize the lie. The vows are simply a gesture, a traditional measure to reduce my anxiety at leaving ordained life. I know that for me there is no Middle Path. I am either ordained or not. A Buddhist in Asia or not. Of the spirit or of the body…. I will tell myself that, since the purpose of the precepts is only to enhance the practice mindfulness, there is no reason for me not to return to who I used to be… the first precept is the only one I try to keep to this day… because it directly impacts me… Reminding me of what is possible, more than a decade out of the temple, out of my mother’s house.” (Pg. 232-233)

When she had left the temple, and policeman asks her, ‘What are you?’ She muses, “the policemen’s question… haunts me, at first shaking and annoying me, and then pleasing me that for once identity can’t be recognized, assumed, categorized, explained from the outside. That I have indeed accomplished my goal before returning to the West, establishing that there’s no easy, static answer to the question.” (Pg. 284)

This book will be of keen interest to those interested in Buddhism in Thailand.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book jumps around in time and place quite frequently because it is organized into idea blocks rather than a totally linear story line. The jumbled time line emphasizes the messy, twisted road Faith took to find- well, faith.

Faith uses marginalia like David Foster Wallace uses footnotes in that there is almost a book within a book through the margins. It can break up the reading in odd ways or it can give you a break from the main story to read her comments, thoughts, and ideas. While the main text is crafted and reflective the side notes have a feeling of spontaneity in the moment of discovery as if they were pulled directly from her journals. They increase the intimacy of the work even as they make it more difficult to read, but a story about the exploration of self and faith shouldn't be an easy book to read.

Why do we often go into other cultures to find ourselves? IIs it the distance we need or is it the comparison to something so unfamiliar, do we find it in the moments when things do become familiar or is it found when we stretch our minds to think inside a different language? Faith explores her own need to travel, to fit in and yet be special, to believe in something and most of all believe in herself.

[Georgiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quotes:
p.80 Freedom of movement in lay life is merely a way to compensate for the lack of freedom while standing alone with oneself."
p.84 "It takes four minutes to unpack. On a wooden crate I line up my four books about Buddhism, my journal, the bottle of orange juice concentrate and jar of instant coffee, and a spoon and glass. I fold my two extra sets of robes and fluffy lavender blanket and two towels and put them in the corner atop my sleeping mat. I arrage the pairs of pens and three candles on the windowsill. I hang the flashlight and plastic bag of toiletries on nails in the ceiling beam. Lastly, I put my blue plastic bucket in the bathroom and my bath sandals on the step. Done! Moved in. "Hmm," Maechi Roongduan remarks, "so much stuff." [...:] I scan the nearly bare room, trying to take pride in its neat order. What could I have pared down? What is inessential or frivolous? One towel instead of two? Two candles, not three? What limits does spiritual quest require?"

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the journey Adiele shares in this book. As she tells how she ended up in Thailand in the first place, her reasons for return, and deciding to become a maechi, she delves into the common identity struggles many of us face. Her descriptions of life in the wat, including the sexism of Buddhism and its physical demands, are interesting and encouraged me to think more broadly. For the most part I appreciated the chapters themselves much more than the scattered journal entries and quotations. However, the journal entry on mindfulness and showering in the Harvard Rules chapter was beautiful.

There is so much in this book, humanity, spirituality, social class, maturation, race, language and culture struggles, but it is not at all burdensome to read.

[Tamara Gantt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reading this again. It's a glimpse into a world that fascinates me; I sometimes wish I could live that life.

A good passage:


"Every day you are responsible for how you feel. No one can make you unhappy or nervous. The untrained mind is so vulnerable to circumstances. Something good happens and it is happy. Something bad happens and it is in pain" (127).

[Terrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting journey. A mixed race girl raised by a strong, independent single mom, internalizes her mom's teachings, but finds that in the real world she feels fragmented and torn by racism. She explores her feelings of anger and otherness and, like many books about or by bi-racial authors, she talks of not belonging anywhere.

She leaves Harvard and goes to Thailand, still searching for meaning, for contentment, for some internal peace. She is working on a project, a study, about women in Thailand, particularly women who enter a wat (temple). She is offered the opportunity to ordain at a Buddhist wat and accepts. The story chronicles her year there, what she learned and how she learned it, lessons big and small.

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning but found by the middle my attention wandered a bit....I'd lose track of the point she was trying to make as she circled around different time periods and different people. It's a loosely linear story, but the center became a bit convoluted and I lost my way more than once. None-the-less I found it intriguing and foreign and SO informative. Definitely worth your time to explore some of the wrong assumptions about Buddhism and about one woman's journey to find herself.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the author's descriptions of meditation and her experiences within those unusual states of mind... I'm a dabbler there, but I've never had the visual experiences that she had. (In fairness, I also did not move to Thailand and get ordained and dedicate my life to practice!) Her interweaving of simultaneous narratives in the sidebars with the main flow of the text served as a useful illustration of the wandering nature of thoughts to me, how we can relate ideas to each other, pick up and put down different but related threads at will, and experience ourselves thinking in a nonlinear fashion. Put it down. Pick it up. Start again. So, a surprisingly relatable book, when I'd been expecting to read about someone's life that was entirely different from mine.

[Egle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool book about a meditation journey. I was surprised by how much I could relate to Faith. This is a great book for someone learning about or thinking about getting into meditation. It was a great reminder of some of my first years with the practice. She does talk about sexual abuse and sexism in the book, which made me feel quite triggered while I was going through it, so abuse survivors- be forewarned.

[Daria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of this book is interesting and engaging. I liked Faith as a character of her own memoir, she is very relatable in her awkwardness, she is funny and smart, and a really good anthropologist. As light anthropology this book is great. As a memoir it feels a bit unfinished as different parts of the story are not clearly connected and the jumpy storytelling (and formatting!) is sometimes confusing. I usually like non-linear narratives but this one was not seamlessly crafted.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faith’s journey from Harvard to becoming a Buddhist nun is a strange , interesting one and I’m glad I was along for the ride in this beautiful read. From her childhood to Harvard to Thailand to her forest wat, each offer such a unique perspective of a life. A lovely peaceful read that I could not put down.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guided tour via Faith's narrative and journals of becoming a Buddhist nun in Thailand. The text layout (like the Talmud) is part of what makes it a captivating read.

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. Interesting story. I wished she focused more on being a nun than everything else in her life.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charmingly told and I’m not a fan of any religion, but this was done without preaching. Lovely and interesting.

[V · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Homework response October 11, 2011)

I found Faith Adiele's Meeting Faith to be an enjoyable, fast-paced read. This paces is kept by the actions of the characters being described minimalist terms, but she still manages to get a lot out of her descriptions, such as “I had the impression that [Maechi Roongduan] was shaking with delighted mirth, though she stood perfectly still” (43). In this sentence she is able to capture both the delightful mood of the senior maechi and her monastic solemnity.

Even if her writing does not have the most flair, she did a good job drawing connections between her identity struggles, religious history and moral up-bringing with her time spent as a maechi. She manages to project her inner thoughts through these explanatory flashbacks to her childhood and through metaphors.

To make an argument for her use of present tense, the entire point of meditation is living in the present. To be honest, I didn't even notice that it was in present tense while I was reading because I was too caught up in the story, but I believe that part of that is because it was in present tense. I was living every moment with her rather than feeling like I am looking back. Meditation is not about looking back—it is about experiencing every moment as it happens.

I found the two narratives on one page unnecessary. I don't necessarily have a problem with it in theory; it is that she is inconsistent with how she uses them. When she is telling storylines about herself in the margins, I don't see why she couldn't have fleshed them out and weave them into the main storyline. She claimed in the author's notes that the margins were supposed to cover the spiritual, inward storyline, while the main page was the external story. However, I have a hard time seeing that. In “Lessons in Lying and Killing,” she covers the story about finding the rat in the main text, but finding the monitor lizard in the margins. Aren't those both external? I can understand giving some of her reflections and summaries of Buddhist precepts in the margins, but when two narratives were running that didn't work for me.

The last chapter doesn't make it clear how she feels about being out at bars and clubs after being in a monastery for months. Her friend mentions that she is not drinking. and she states at one point that she is “just getting used to the idea of talking.” Other than that she does not have any other comparisons to her other life, nor does she mention any emotions except when the police man asks if she is a man or a woman. I wanted to know why she wasn't drinking and if she liked being back in the fray of everyday life. It felt to me like the only important part was at the end when the questions from the police officer makes her question her identity but she felt like she needed that whole story to give the context.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very thoughtful, introspective book. It was certainly not trying to impress its readers, and therefore did read more like Faith’s journals than “Faith trying to write a book about her Buddhist nun experience.” I like the frankness of the prose and the way the thoughts seem to flow. When she’s repetitive, it’s not because the writing is bad and she forgot to edit something out; it’s because her thought process in that wat was very cyclic; it returned to topics and hovered around them until it could resolve or abandon them.

What I did not care for as much were the actual from-the-journal notes that lined the margins of the book. These seemed like a book unto themselves and I could not decide when, as I read the actual text on the page, I was supposed to read these bits of text. They flowed in their own logical way, telling their own independent, yet related story, and it was very distracting to try to keep both stories in mind at the same time while jumping back and forth between the two texts. I tend to keep strictly to reading one novel at a time for a reason, and to read two novels literally simultaneously is exhausting, never mind confusing.

Nevertheless, this is the first book that actually makes me want to pack up my belongings, ship off to another country, and try something that, as a premise, totally terrifies me. Faith makes it sound like a challenge worth pursuing. Her book was beautiful, and if I ever spend a significant amount of time in Pittsburgh again, I intend to attempt meeting her. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh!

[Teepet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was many things. It was an excellent supplement to studies of Thai Buddhism, it was a great view into the complexities of race in America and abroad, it was a good guide of things to expect and Ugly Americanisms to avoid while in Chiang Mai and Thailand ingeneral, it was a great read. I grabbed this book as one of the stack of Oh-God-I'm-going-to-Thailand-and-don't-know-anything-about-it books. It was one of the only books I found that was actually set in the Chiang Mai area (or, for that matter, not in Bangkok), which is where I was studying abroad. I actually got to see Chiang Mai University (where she studied), Wat Phra Singh (where she ordained) and Wat Tham Tong (where she meditated). Wat Tham Tong was a 1-2 hour bus ride and a 3.5km walk away from Chiang Mai, but it was worth seeing and I'm really greatful that I got to hear about it. It's certainly not a tourist-y wat, very few people could speak English there, and my 3 weeks of Thai language class did little good in explaining why I was there and how impressed I was. Maybe when I can speak more Thai, I'll go back and ordain. I don't know. Meeting Faith is an amazing and inspirational book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in gender, race, Buddhism, and/or Thailand.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

In “Meeting Faith,” Adiele recounts her journey to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk. Having spent a year in high school abroad there, she fell in love with the country and found herself seeking out its tranquility and beauty after she returned to the United States to attend Harvard. So, naturally, she returns. With the mission of immersing herself in the lives of Buddhist nuns, the female equivalent of monks, she winds up deciding to become ordained herself for the full experience.

I enjoyed parts of this story but was somewhat confused at times—sometimes the memoir was about her childhood, sometimes it was about her life and identity, sometimes it was an anthropological look at Buddhist nuns, sometimes it was a statement about mindfulness… there were a lot of different trails and they didn’t necessarily intertwine very well. That being said, I think it did a pretty good job of demystifying the world of Buddhism for the average person. While it was a little too drawn-out for my taste, it was still fairly enjoyable. 3 stars!

[Chimezie Ogbuji · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book about a first generation, mixed race Nigerian american who seeks to write about the experiences of a Maechi (a Thai / buddhist nun) but ends up ordaining to be one herself for a year. It is also about the identity crises of being mixed race, first-generation West african (which I can relate to - partly at least) and of the journey of understanding buddhist principles and how they can be applied to everyday life. It is a very unique story and the writing is of good quality. My only complaint is that the author seems to spend alot of time about discussing the struggles that had less to do with the faith she had ordained in and more about her personal struggles and it would have been nice to read more about if/how she found closure with her personal demons through her experience.

[Vishnu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faith Adelle is a compelling character with a brilliant story and nuanced, thought-provoking perspective. The parts of the book that dealt with her personal history and observations of her life in America were spot-on. I could have read hundreds of more pages on that topic.

I found her discussions of Buddhism to be not that engaging. They seemed to be a tale of "Buddhism from a beginner's perspective," and I myself am a beginner with a basic meditation practice, so there just wasn't much new for me to take in from her.

Her discussions of Thailand were similarly superficial, and read more like a traveler's journal than a deep, historically-rooted, politically astute analysis of the country. I'm sure this was the point, and I guess I personally don't care that much for travel writing.

All that said, I will definitely be reading her fiction!

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of a biracial American woman (Finnish-Nigerian) who goes to Thailand as a Rotary exchange student in high school, returns during college and as part of her studies, ordains as a maechi, Buddhist nun. It's part memoir, part exploration of Buddhism, part anthropological study. Having read "A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki I wanted to know more about Buddhist nuns and this seemed a good choice. It was and it wasn't. Turns out nuns in Thailand are different from elsewhere. Never mind, it was fascinating anyway. I enjoyed the authors interweaving of her life and Buddhist journey, especially the inclusion of bits of her journals down the outer margins of the pages. I read this for my 2016 Reading Challenge "read a fiction/nonfiction book about religion" (Read Harder).

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Not only was it a fascinating story of the writer becoming a nun in Thailand for a brief time, but it also included much of her biography and reflection on being raised in the United States, half Nigerian and half Finnish-American, by a white mother. Her experiences, both in the United States and abroad, are fascinating. I am also drawn to the unusual structure of the book. Adiele moves seamlessly between the present story of her experience as a maechi in Thailand and her experiences in the United States, but she also includes many quotations on Buddhism and clips from her journals as sidebars, which really adds to the reading.

[Kris V · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an unexpected pleasure to come upon this book. Granted, I was assigned to read it for my creative writing course in Graduate school, but it's unlike any non-fiction read, in structure as well as subject. Faith Adiele is a gifted poet who stained the pages with metaphors that left me breathless.
An inspiring story that took guts to tell it the way it could reach readers the most. There's the spiritual aspect that those interested in the practice can learn about - and there's also the story of her own personal growth.
Truly inspiring and highly recommended.

[Mo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything about the hardcover version of this book. I love her story and her writing, I love the layout, I love the size of the book and the way it feels in my hands. I love the part where she talks about writing a comic book called Super Afro. An incredible journey, although the parts about the snakes, rats and komodo dragons outside of her meditation hut quite frankly scared the shit out of me (in a mostly good way).

[Melanie Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

My husband gave me this book, and in addition to being a good introduction to Thai Buddhism, it is also a good introduction to Thai culture. It gets off to a rough start, and I wasn't completely clear on some points...like how she got from Harvard to Thailand with a different university, but I'm still reading, and fell asleep reading it last night, so maybe I'll know some answers later.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book about a African American girl who becomes a buddhist nun in Thailand after flunking out of Harvard. There are moments where she borders on preachy but there are great insights as well. I am glad I stumbled on this one.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the memoir of a woman suffering from depression who drops out of college and moves to Thailand to study Buddhist nuns. She ends up becoming a nun for a year and learns how to sit with herself. It's honest and funny and wise.