Introduction: Lived Interconnectedness

Abstract

As I am sitting here, writing my author’s perspective at my parent’s place, a Buddhist retreat center in Southern Germany, I am reminded of how much my upbringing was steeped in a mindset of loving-kindness and joy, especially from my mother’s side, and a longing for freedom and authenticity, particularly incorporated by my father. What both lived equally, for all the years I have known them now, is a tireless dedication to Tibetan Buddhism and supporting others when they are in need of it. I did not grow up in the place where they are living today, but in a region in Western Germany called Ruhrarea, where I was born in 1988.