Traveling in Bardo by Ann Tashi Slater with Dani Shapiro

In a world where nothing lasts forever, how do we live? Join us for a conversation with Ann Tashi Slater to launch her new book, a luminous exploration of how we can navigate transition and impermanence, rooted in the Tibetan tradition of bardo. She will be in conversation with best-selling author Dani Shapiro, followed by a signing.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

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A luminous exploration of how to navigate uncertainty and change, rooted in the Tibetan tradition of bardo.

In a world where nothing lasts forever, how do we live? Life is perpetually, endlessly filled with change: new jobs and new loves, unfamiliar places and faces. And entwined in that change is loss: loss of what was or is, or what could have been. In the midst of this shifting landscape, Traveling in Bardo invites us to embrace impermanence in a powerful way, rooted in ancient wisdom.

Interweaving explorations of bardo in relation to marriage and friendship, parents and children, work and creativity with stories of her Tibetan ancestors and the Buddhist teachings on the fleeting nature of existence, Ann Tashi Slater illuminates what the teachings have to tell us in our contemporary lives. She relays vital wisdom from Tibetan culture, giving us a bold new framework to navigate moments of change and live life fully.

During over forty years of writing and speaking about her Tibetan-American heritage and the relevance of Buddhism in Western society, Slater has come to see how Tibetan bardo views on impermanence can transform the way we live. In Tibetan belief, bardo is the interval between death and rebirth, as well as the intermediate state between birth and death. It also refers to liminal periods in life when the reality we know comes to an end. A time of great possibility, it offers us the opportunity to find lasting happiness in an impermanent world.

Ann Tashi Slater contributes to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Tin House, Guernica, AGNI, Granta, and many others. Her work has been featured in Lit Hub and included in The Best American Essays. In her Darjeeling Journal column for Catapult, she writes about her Tibetan family history and bardo, and she blogged for the HuffPost about similar topics. She presents and teaches workshops at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, the Asia Society, and The American University of Paris, among others. She was a regular speaker at NYC’s Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art during its 20-year run; her highly popular Rubin presentations on bardo and her family history have been mentioned in The New York Times.

Dani Shapiro is the author of eleven books, and the host and creator of the hit podcast Family Secrets. Her most recent novel, Signal Fires, was named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Amazon, and others, and is a national bestseller. Her most recent memoir, Inheritance, was an instant New York Times Bestseller, and named a best book of 2019 by Elle, Vanity Fair, Wired, and Real Simple. Both Signal Fires and Inheritance were winners of the National Jewish Book Award. Dani’s work has been published in fourteen languages and she’s currently developing Signal Fires for its television adaptation. Dani’s book on the process and craft of writing, Still Writing, has just been reissued on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. She occasionally teaches workshops and retreats, and is the co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy.