How does an English, Christian girl grow up to be an acclaimed Tibetan Buddhist Lama? It was a search for Truth and a deep wish to understand the mind that led a young, determined Susan Rowan (b.1946) from suburban Essex, England, to the foothills of the Himalayas in the early 1970s. On the instruction of famed Tibetan Buddhist master Ch�gyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she headed East to 'absorb the vibes' as he put it. There she met and was taught by some of the most eminent Tibetan Lamas and yogins of our time, including Kalu Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche and The 16th Karmapa, who ordained her as a nun and subsequently sent her back to the West to teach.

At the request of her students, Lama Shenpen Hookham tells her fascinating and unconventional life story in the 'Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting & Other Stories'. The lively, anecdotal autobiography documents her extraordinary spiritual journey and her encounters with her teachers that are deeply profound, moving and often humorous. Lama Shenpen shares first-hand experience of how differing cultures and ways of thinking overlap and collide with unexpected consequences. At the heart of this book is a quest for truth - an ongoing discovery of the true nature of mind, yet as we discover, this is more about the heart in its deepest sense.

After living and practising as a nun in India for several years she was asked to return to the West. Working as a translator to the first wave of Tibetan Buddhist masters to Europe, gave Lama Shenpen a unique insight into how to adapt the most profound teachings of the Buddha for a western audience. Since gaining a PHD at Oxford in Buddhist doctrine in the 1980s (doing so on the advice of her main teacher Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, ) she has worked tirelessly to make the profound Truth at the heart of Buddhist teachings on meditation, reflection and insight (Dzgochen and Mahamudra) accessible to others, through a unique training called Living the Awakened Heart.

On the advice of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, (a fascinating story in in itself included in the book - how a Tibetan master picked up on the specialness of the Welsh landscape by studying and divining a map, ) Lama Shenpen made her base in north-west Wales over twenty years ago, where she lives today in semi-retreat, working on her writing and teaching her students, members of the Awakened Heart Sangha - www.ahs.org.uk

Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting & Other Stories: An English Woman's Journey to Becoming a Buddhist Lama, Lama Shenpen Hookham, Shrimala Publishing, Paperback, 354 Pages, $17.99