Inseparable across Lifetimes The Lives and Love Letters of the Tibetan Visionaries Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tare Lhamo

Winner of a 2021 Kayden Translation Award

A true story of love, separation, and rediscovery in a time of cultural and spiritual upheaval in Tibet.

An inspiring and intimate tale set against the turmoil of recent Tibetan history, Inseparable across Lifetimes offers for the first time the translations of love letters between two modern Buddhist visionaries. The letters are poetic, affectionate, and prophetic, articulating a hopeful vision of renewal that drew on their past lives together and led to their twenty-year partnership. This couple played a significant role in restoring Buddhism in the region of Golok once China’s revolutionary fervor gave way to reform. Holly Gayley, who was given their correspondence by Namtrul Rinpoche himself, has translated their lives and letters in order to share their remarkable story with the world.

Holly Gayley is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet, and her publications address Buddhist ethics, gender and sexuality, and religious modernism.