After over 20 years of study, I finally feel completely comfortable in the language and the culture. Given my long-standing interest in Buddhism and my deep love for mountain landscapes, I felt right at home. Grant, whose research focuses on the poetry and other writings of 18th-century Chinese Buddhist nuns, was particularly delighted to find herself welcomed into a thriving Buddhist convent, where she spent a day with its 300 young nuns and their vibrant and energetic abbess, Reverend Miaoyin. The mountain has special significance for Tibetan Buddhists because several Dalai Lamas have spent time there. The young monk she met was considered to be the reincarnation of a just such a spiritual teacher a fact confirmed by none other than the present Dalai Lama himself.
Religion is central to their lives, but it is never considered to be a reason to be overly solemn.
When the time came to part, he insisted on having his picture taken with her, plopping himself on her lap for the shot. While some tourists might have found the experience a bit daunting, Grant has always been at ease in multicultural settings. Born in northern New Mexico, she grew up in a series of rural villages that even today might be considered part of Third World America. Her father, a writer and a free spirit, didn't like to stay in one place too long. The family, she recalled, seemed to move to a new village, a different adobe dwelling almost every year.