My father, Karma Tsultrim, underwent great hardships and sacrifices in order to support and provide for us, his family. Once a year, for example, he quite willingly embarked on a trading journey from our village in the nomad lands of Tibet to the trading centers near the Tibet-China border, traveling by horseback or yak on an arduous two or three month journey.

He carried with him butter, wool, lamb and yak meat, as well as yak hair that he could trade for barley, grains, rice, lentils, dried fruit, and even clothing. He loaded all these supplies onto yaks—a very reliable but not so speedy form of transportation—so travel could be quite slow and tedious.

He had no choice but to travel through remote areas where Khampa bandits preyed on merchant caravans. The risk was not just to his goods for trade, but to his very life. Yet he accepted this dangerous aspect of his duty as a caregiver for his family in order to provide for us. Not in every culture or society is the father asked to undergo such risks to simply to fulfill his family obligations.

A Union of Mutual Respect
In an era in which the divorce rate hovers around 50 percent, I find it inspiring and insightful to look upon the special union my parents created through their happy and resilient marriage. My mother and father always respected each other and communicated a deep level of appreciation for each other’s role. This spirit of loving-kindness set a proper and formative example for me. For instance, if my father was ever away from home at mealtime, my mother would feed all of us hungry kids without taking a single bite herself. Instead, she would wait and eat with my father, even if he didn’t arrive until the wee hours of the night. This isn’t something she did out of fear or meek submissiveness toward my father, but as a sign of deep love and respect.

My mother’s name was Chodun Dorjee. She gave our family support and structure within the home in some of the traditional ways you might imagine, yet with a sense of love and devotion that imbued them with a special richness, such as by managing the daily routine, the cooking, cleaning, the care of the yak and sheep, and overseeing the health and welfare of us all. Whenever there was a moment of poverty or difficulty, she gave everything and anything to sustain us.

There is a story that exemplifies this sense of sacrifice poignantly. One brutal winter my brothers and I were suffering terribly from the cold. In Tibet, we wore long boots made from wool felt with a leather sole. Once these homemade boots get wet they freeze, and without some kind of insulation, we could quickly end up with severe frostbite. Our mother had nothing but hay to stuff into our boots to insulate them. This kept us warm, but unfortunately the hay got soaked with the constant stomping through the snow and was never functional for more than one day. To solve this problem, my mother would sleep with the wet hay stuffed close to her warm body each night. By morning, the warmth emanating from her body would have dried the hay, and she would have newly usable insulation to put back into our boots. This kind of sacrifice inspired our whole family with a spirit of compassion and unity.

My mother’s disposition was surely influenced by her family as some, but not all, of them were very spiritual. My father was very spiritual, so when she married him he influenced her outlook toward the spiritual point-of-view. Yet my mother never really underwent a formal retreat or intensive spiritual practice when she was young. But my mother did faithfully recite some of the mantras and shorter practices of Tibetan Buddhism, such as the 21 Salutations of Tara, the Guru Rinpoche short prayer, and a few other prayers of compassion. She melodically recited those practices whenever she was outside the tent working with the animals, taking care of the milk, or helping the baby animals nurse. Those mantras were like a melody that accompanied her wherever she was. I’ll always remember how nearly every morning at dawn she would be out milking the animals and singing the 21 Salutations of Tara. It is a beautiful, enriching memory. Even today, many, many years later, these are the things that I remember about her.