Being Kind in Bhutan

I have a particular fondness for yoga transformation stories so a quick look at Emma Slade’s Set Free: A life-changing journey from banking to Buddhism in Bhutan (Summersdale £9.99) immediately appealed. Slade worked in banking as an analyst, living in Hong Kong, flying around the Far East attending high-powered meetings and offering her expertise. (I didn’t understand this bit.) Then one evening in Jakarta everything changed, when she was held hostage at gunpoint in her hotel room. Once freed by the hotel security, as well as suffering from PTSD, she began to feel overwhelmed with pity about the man who’d menaced her.

Something had to give, and it was the elite lifestyle. I imagined either a wealthy background or a large amount of savings provided a (meditation) cushion, because she discovered yoga via a number of idyllic-sounding international trips. Long and lean, she fitted enviably into the poses, yet after a while the yoga lifestyle didn’t quite do it for her either. She split up with her boyfriend and immediately discovered she was pregnant, went back to banking and finally found what she was looking for in Bhutan, a land she had longed to visit. She began to teach yoga there, then to study Buddhism seriously with a lama she providentially encountered. Now she splits her time between being a nun in Bhutan with being a mum in Kent, albeit one with a shaven head and monastic clothing.

It’s an amazing story and what’s most remarkable about it is the personality of Slade herself. She is an exceptional individual who never seems to think of herself as such. Clearly one of the awkward squad, she writes movingly and unselfconsciously about her personal struggles. She just doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere she goes (while obviously being very high-functioning). That is until she sits down in a Bhutanese shrine room and sinks into deep inner peace. Not that the training sounds anything but gruelling.

Appealingly, she says that Buddhism is ‘Kindhism, really’ and reveals that she just wanted to learn to be a kinder person. Touched by the simplicity of life in rural Bhutan, but appalled by some of its privations, she set up a charity to help special needs children (details at www.openingyourhearttobhutan.com). Funds from the sale of the book go to help them. Beyond that, it’s simply a great read.