Waiting at the Mountain Pass: Coming to Terms with Solitude, Decline, and Death in Tibetan Exile

An intimate meditation on aging and dying in exile among elderly Tibetans in Dharamsala, India

In a Tibetan saying, the journey of life is likened to a climb up to a mountain pass. Upon reaching it, the journey concludes and one must cross over into death and the next rebirth. The impermanence of life—described by the Buddha as the nature of reality—crystallizes at the mountain pass, manifesting itself through the painful and arduous descent ahead and a series of sufferings.

In this book, Har...