An Oklahoma girl's years of immersion in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery

Girl in a Box: Seeking Enlightenment as a Tibetan Buddhist Nun chronicles a five-year immersion in the paradigm-altering world of a Tibetan retreat center in New York's Hudson Valley. It weaves flashbacks of Collins' former life with her ongoing attempts to surrender to monastic life. She travels to India with her teacher, takes vows as a nun, then returns to life at the monastery where she works as a house cleaner days and evenings to earn money to attend a dreamed-of three-year retreat. In her struggle to become a stellar nun, she conducts a one-sided jealous rivalry with a beautiful and "perfect" young nun--whom she later discovers is hiding a shocking secret. She also describes the grueling practice of performing over 100,000 prostrations and her disillusionment upon learning of the imperfect humanity of her revered teachers.

As the underlying grace of those years spent with the Tibetans come into focus, Collins sees that she is like a girl who packs her suitcase and sets off down the road only to discover she has nowhere to go. What she is seeking--the very "home" she longs for--has been right there all along. Hiding in plain sight; masked in a cloak of the suffering she so longs to escape. Overlooked. Because, as the Tibetans teach--it's too simple, too obvious, too close.

Girl in a Box: Seeking Enlightenment as a Tibetan Buddhist Nun, Paldrom Catharine Collins, Monkfish Book Publishing, Paperback, 206 pages, $24.95

Paldrom Catharine Collins' introduction to religion was at the First Baptist Church she attended with her parents, until she left as a young woman seeking enlightenment--first in the mystical practices of the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana, then for fourteen years immersed in the non-dual teachings of Gangaji, in the Hindu Advaita lineage of Ramana Maharshi. Today, she's found a connection to contemplative Christianity, serving on the board of directors of the Journey Center Association, and completing their two-year spiritual director certification program.

Paldrom and her husband, George, live in California's San Francisco Bay Area. Their business, Neulia-Compulsion Solutions, provides counseling services for sex and porn addicts and their partners. In 2011, their book A Couple's Guide to Sexual Addiction: Step-by-Step Plan to Rebuild Trust & Restore Intimacy was published by Adams Media. She's also authored articles published in Inquiring Mind and Buddhadharma (Lion's Roar) magazines.