I join the IMC community as a postdoctoral fellow with Christian Suhr’s project “Heart Openings: The Experience and Cultivation of Love in Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.” New to Aarhus and Denmark, I am happy to learn and be a part of Danish culture while I research this topic on love in Tibetan Buddhism, which is close to my heart. This position grants me the opportunity to explore how Tibetan Buddhist practitioners experience love from and in their contemplative practices. 

My dissertation, titled The Role of Devotion (mos gus) in Tibetan Heart Essence Traditions: Devotional Affect and Its Relationship to Dzogchen’s Foundational Practices (rdzogs chen), explores how devotion functions epistemologically and philosophically for practitioners through doctrinal texts. I look forward to incorporating this into our current project. For me, recording first-person experience of devotion and love is exciting. I am curious to see the connections and gaps between texts and experience. 

This project will also take me to Nepal so that I can interview and film Tibetan diaspora communities. One aspect I focus on is how connection created in contemplative practices for practitioners also has the power to invoke a sense of “openness” for these individuals. Connection and openness may be tentacles to experiences of love. I hope to incorporate these interviews into either a broader definition of love or illuminate the cultural importance on understanding experiences of love.