Sleeping In Caves: A Sixties Himalayan Memoir

* Sleeping in Caves: A Sixties Himalayan Memoir is the true story of a woman who dropped out of Berkeley in 1965 to travel to India and Nepal with her lover. Their time there becomes a seven year stay in which she expresses herself through painting, and learns the secrets, wonders, and sacred essence of a profoundly spiritual culture. A smattering of black-and-white photographs and essays illustrate the award-winning author's dazzling journey through a rich and rewarding culture, and a brief glossary will prove helpful to readers unfamiliar with Indian, Nepali, and Buddhist terms. A highly recommended window into quiet daily workings of another land as observered and experienced by Marilyn Stablein. The Midwest Book Review - November 2004

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* "A mid-1960s dropout from Berkeley University, Marilyn Stablein hit India’s dusty backpack trail just as the Himalayas were opening up to western dharma-seekers. Her seven years in Darjeeling, Kathmandu and assorted bazaars-at-the-end-of-the-world make a worthy tale that proves eminently enlightening.

Stablein roughs it spiritually, ecologically, transportationally and often psychologically in a litany of cross-cultural encounters that will be familiar to anyone who’s stirred the red dust of the Sanskrit world. But whether you’ve traveled doesn’t matter: Stablein ornaments her book with a rich harvest of landscape portraits, on-the-road meetings with Tibetan lamas, Shivaite ascetics, a considerably younger Dalai Lama, Harvard LSD researcher Richard Alpert in the process of morphing into Baba Ram Dass, and others. Ultimately, Stablein becomes Lhamo Saykey, a lay disciple, and commits herself to studying Tibetan and the practice of Buddhist thanka paintings. Her mini-essays on Himalayan medicine, ritual, art and aesthetics, guru-chela relationships, religious rites, and even loneliness ring with lovely sincerity. Dragonfly Review, May 2004, by Trevor Carolan

* Illustrated with hand drawn maps, art work, and photographs. Includes recipes.

Kudos from other writers:

“The author’s eye is open wide, and her writing is fresh, funny, and exhilarating.”
--Peter Matthiessen

"The Best, Funniest, Truest (and Secretly Truest) writing ever done on life in India (Bharat)."
--Gary Snyder