Author Andy Chaleff speaks to personal and collective grief, teaching listeners that embracing loss can help us live a more fulfilling life.

Get your copy of Andy’s book, Dying to Live: Finding Life’s Meaning Through Death

This week on Mindrolling, Raghu and Andy have a conversation on:

• Andy’s early experiences with fear, existential dread, and childhood loss
• Andy’s emotional and intellectual process of writing
• Childhood grief, losing a parent, and losing a pet
• Breaking free from a victimhood identity by reframing life’s challenges
• Shifting perspective to see the world with gratitude and compassion
• Processing collective grief in the face of global crises, politics, and inequality
• How to live in love instead of living in fear
• Finding the blessings in difficult circumstances
• The wisdom of Stoicism and learning to “live with death on the shoulder”
• Laughing at the dance between life’s seriousness and absurdity
• Finding the heart-mind in ourselves and providing service to others

About Andy Chaleff:

Andy Chaleff is an author, mentor, and speaker whose life and work are grounded in radical emotional honesty. At eighteen, Andy’s mother was killed by a drunk driver just hours after receiving a deeply personal letter he had written — a soul-baring message he never imagined would be his last to her. That moment became the start of a lifelong inquiry into grief, love, and what it means to live without holding back.

Today, Andy works privately with a select group of clients, from cultural icons to global leaders, offering mentorship rooted in vulnerability, clarity, and deep presence. His work invites people to reconnect with themselves and embrace the parts of life we’re taught to avoid. His books, often called spiritual memoirs, blend raw personal storytelling with existential insight. His newest, Dying to Live, explores how coming to peace with death can open us to the full beauty of life. Originally from California, Andy now lives in Amsterdam, where he directs Amsterdam's Welvaren, a center for coaching and leadership. Check out Andy’s website HERE.

“It’s the recognition of fear that is a prime ingredient. It always goes back to fear of death, or, you can say it a different way, impermanence.” –Andy Chaleff

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Raghu Markus and Ann Tashi Slater dive into The Tibetan Book of the Dead, bardo states, and how embracing death and impermanence can help us live with greater presence and purpose.

Pick up a copy of Ann’s September 2025 book, Traveling in Bardo

This week on Mindrolling, Raghu and Ann discuss:

• The Tibetan Book of the Dead and how it can help us in modern Western culture
• Bardo states: the in-between, liminal spaces between death and rebirth, birth and death.
• How we regularly experience metaphorical death through the impermanence of relationships, identities, and moments
• Accepting the reality of death and impermanence to avoid struggle and suffering
• Finding grace in life-lessons and why Ram Dass initially thought his guru gave him the stroke
• Ann’s Tibetan lineage and strong connection to her grandmother
• Ensuring that we are living in alignment with the things we care most about
• Why reflecting on death while alive can lead to more conscious, intentional living
• Maintaining traditions as a way to accept reality, process grief, and find meaning in loss
• Recognizing our interdependence and having compassion for other people

Check out the film The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life, narrated by Leonard Cohen

About Ann Tashi Slater:

Ann Tashi Slater has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Tin House, Guernica, AGNI, Granta, and many others. Her work has been featured in Lit Hub and included in The Best American Essays. In her Darjeeling Journal column for Catapult, she writes about her Tibetan family history and bardo, and she blogged for HuffPost about similar topics. She presents and teaches workshops at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, Asia Society, and The American University of Paris, among others, and was a regular speaker at NYC’s Rubin Museum of Art during the museum's 20-year run. You can learn more about Ann and sign up for her newsletter at http://www.anntashislater.com.

“The really fundamental lesson of the bardo teachings is that awareness of impermanence allows us to actually, counterintuitively, find the happiness that we’re looking for. When we struggle against it, we make ourselves miserable because there’s nothing we can do to change it. Things end.” – Ann Tashi Slater

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Recorded live at the 2025 Summer Mountain Retreat, this homestyle chat with Raghu Markus, Nina Rao, and Robert Thurman explores the Bhakti-Buddhist lineage of Ram Dass and Maharaj-ji.

Join us this December for the 2025 Ram Dass Legacy Open Your Heart in Paradise retreat in Maui!

This time on Mindrolling, Raghu, Nina, and Robert discuss:

• The story of finding Neem Karoli Baba and filling up on poori and potatoes
• How Maharaj-ji miraculously healed Krishna Das’s injured knee
• The wonderful interplay between Ram Dass and Buddhist teachers
• Nina’s relationship with Sri Siddhi Ma, an intimate devotee of Maharaj-ji (considered by many to be a saint in her own right)
• Seeing everyone as the guru and living the best way that we can
• Nina’s journey to the foothills of the Himalayas and meeting Siddhi Ma for the first time
• The Buddhist perspective on the soul (ātman) and whether we truly have one
• Why ‘Be Here Now’ is actually a mantra of care and femininity
• The Bhagavad Gita and the meaning of karma yoga
• Letting go of fear around birth and death by focusing on liberation from suffering
• Being here now in the best way we can by loving those around us rather than running away from the pain in the world

“My own take on it in terms of what we represent and what goes on here is really, truly, a combination of Bhakti and discriminating wisdom represented by Buddhist perspective.” – Raghu Markus

About Nina Rao:

Nina Rao is a devotional singer. She tours with Krishna Das, playing cymbals, singing, and acting as his business manager. Nina has two of her own albums, “Antarayaami – Knower of All Hearts” and “Anubhav”. Nina regularly leads kirtan, workshops, and retreats in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York and beyond. Together with Chandra and Genevieve Walker, Nina operates the 21 Taras Collective. You can keep up with Nina on her website or find her on Instagram @nina_rao and on Facebook @NinaRaoChant.

“I didn’t realize that I was looking for a guru until Krishna Das started talking about Neem Karoli Baba. When I heard about him and I felt that presence that came alive when Krishna Das was talking about Maharaj-ji, I wanted to meet him.” – Nina Rao

About Robert Thurman:

Robert Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University and President of the Tibet House U.S., and is the President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. His new book, Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life, is now available.

“What is the best way to 'be here now'? It’s to love Raghu, to love Nina, to love Maharaj-ji, it’s to love everything here and now and make it beautiful and the best. Be as beautiful and as best as you can be because that’s absolute. That’s the way to 'be Nirvana now'.” – Robert Thurman

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