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In this tender, candid memoir looking back over the last seven years of her mother's life, a Vietnamese American Zen teacher shares the deep challenges, unexpected gifts, and the pathways she found through the responsibilities of caregiving and the long-term aftermath of loss.
Ordaining as a Buddhist nun right after university, the young Sister Tue Nghiem (Sister Insight) set out to study and practice mindfulness under the tutelage of the celebrated Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, a war refugee and celebrated peace activist. When the health of her beloved mother begins to decline, she is confronted with the challenge of applying Zen teachings on impermanence to real life. Through caring for Ma, a widow who had taken her five small children on a rickety boat onto the open seas to seek refuge from the war in Vietnam and raised them in America singlehandedly--the author discovers insights on self-care and healing in her own mind and body.
Zig-zagging in space and time between the United States, Vietnam, and France, Sister Tue Nghiem reveals how developing the art of presence can be a key to resiliency, connection, clarity, and peace, even in the most difficult moments of caregiving and anticipatory grief. Drawing on her lifetime of mindfulness practice and the ancestral wisdom of Zen, she shares how taking a silent retreat ten years after her mother's death helps her integrate her love for her mother into her love for all beings, and explores how a caregiver can remain grounded, compassionate, and free while navigating the emotional weight of a parent's declining health.
As well as being a moving story of a woman's love for her mother, the book includes a resource section with Zen teachings on presence for caregivers.
Caregiving and the Art of Presence: A Zen Nun's Journey of Love and Letting Go, Sister Tue Nghiem, Parallax Press, Paperback, 160 pages, $16.95
Sister Tue Nghiem ("Sister Insight") ordained as a novice nun on December 11th, 1993, in Plum Village France. She was authorized to teach by Thich Nhat Hanh on February 19th, 1999. She regularly leads retreats in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.
Born in Vietnam, Sister Tue Nghiem grew up in California and studied psychology at university, with a strong interest in the mind and the aspiration to alleviate the mental pain she saw around her. The same interest and aspiration then brought her to Plum Village France, to train and ordain in mindfulness practice under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
Sister Tue Nghiem balances her time in teaching and administrative roles in the monastery with growing organic vegetables in the gardens. She firmly believes in taking care of the body to sustain the practice, thus sharing her experience in holistic medicine, yoga, Qi Gong, and nutrition with the community.
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