I interviewed Nancy in her chiropractic office on 7 July 2005.

Nancy, 42, is a single mother and chiropractor.  Her ancestors were from Germany, Hungary, and Ireland, "definitely not Buddhist."  Born in New York City, she now resides in Virginia.  When she reached her late 30's, Nancy felt the need to be a mother, so she went to Vietnam to adopt a baby.  She returned with Elizabeth, now 4.

Nancy's parents gave her no religious foundation.  Essentially "unchurched," she was a "clean slate," open to any spiritual direction she wanted to take.   With "no [religious] issues to overcome," Nancy took an Eastern Religion class in graduate school where she was first exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism.  She also pursued yoga and Edgar Cayce's philosophy of natural healing.   

When she went to France on a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, a prominent Vietnamese monk, writer, pacifist, and teacher, she felt "this is the real thing."   Nhat Hanh's "wonderful manner in speaking, so calm" resonated with her.  Nancy ascribes to Nhat Hahn's notion of "engaged Buddhism," action that  "expresses your spirituality through your daily life."  She feels that people believe that in Eastern religion "you have to be a monk and wear robes and sit on a mountaintop and meditate for the rest of your life."  Nhat Hahn, however, tries to make Buddhism compatible with the Western mind.  She continued, "It's just not practical to follow that path and reconcile it with the realities of paying bills and managing family and working."  Nancy summarized Nhat Hanh's teaching:  "Be mindful regardless of what you are doing, whether washing your dishes, doing your job, or interacting with your children.  [Then] you're not all wrapped up in the past or the future.  You can't enjoy yourself unless you can be mindful right now.  That's the way to find happiness."

"I have a Buddhist meditation group, and the majority don't say they are Buddhist.  I confess to being a Buddhist finally," Nancy said with a laugh.

Nancy and her daughter Elizabeth attend the Unitarian Universalist Church. She feels Unitarians are concerned with not "cramming something down their children's throats," but "the more knowledge you have, then you can make decisions."  Nancy wants Elizabeth to learn about various religions:  "If I had started out with some of this knowledge, I might have found [Buddhism] sooner--but at least I didn't have to overcome something to get where I'm at now." At the church, Nancy teaches a middle school class, an introduction to world religions.

While Nancy's mother did not pass down any traditional religion, Nancy credits her mother with recycling in the 70s "before it was hip."   In retrospect Nancy believes this concern with the earth was an indication of her mother's spirituality.  She recalls Nhat Hanh's concept of "interbeing:''  the idea that everything on Earth is connected.  After Nancy's mother married a Jewish man, she began celebrating Jewish holidays.  Now Nancy takes Elizabeth to visit her mother for these holidays.  In addition, Nancy celebrates Christmas and Buddhist holidays with Elizabeth.

Nancy hopes to pass down to Elizabeth "a sense of peace" by modeling an outlook on life and response to situations that requires a separation from the " toxic dramas" of life.  "We get wrapped up in the opera of life," or, as Buddhism asserts, "We create our own suffering." Nancy believes we can avoid suffering through mindfulness.  She has written a book on mindful parenting as a way to raise Elizabeth and to share her philosophy with others.  Nancy hopes that Elizabeth's practice will give her daughter more self-confidence as she approaches the teenage years.

Nancy moved into a new chiropractic office at the end of June.  Clearly, she has created a sacred space here: "This was easy because it was starting from scratch, so I didn't have old clutter to have to sift through."  Nancy chose the color purple for the walls.  Aromatherapy, meditative music, water falling over slate, and bamboo greet her patients in the waiting room.  Her white petaled ceiling lights from Ikea look like lotus blossoms.  She has placed paper screens in front of the windows to allow light in but keep traffic out.  Nancy has no visible clocks in the office.  Her phone ringer is the gong of a brass monk's bowl.  Her massage therapist encouraged me to play with the Buddha board, a piece of cardboard on which patients can paint with water and watch the image evaporate, a reminder of the transience of life.   A sculpture of Buddha's head looks down from a high shelf.  Nancy said she had a sign on the ceiling in her old office that read,  "Be the person you always dreamed you'd be."

"Home is definitely difficult because there's stuff you accumulate over your life.  Buddhism talks a lot about attachment to things and to people, to ideals and to expectations.  Attachment is tough.  There are things that have emotional meaning to us and connection with the past, and acquiring clutter is a big problem.  They have all these books out there about declutterizing your life.  My house doesn't look like this because I have stuff from all the periods I have gone through and things I have inherited and are worth something so you don't get rid of. "   In Nancy's living room is a 300 pound coffee table with a glass top and a big brass elephant as its base.  She jokes that she has an elephant in the living room everybody talks about. 

"I'm not attached to everything being perfect.  No one can be the perfect Buddhist.  We all need a 'gong' to breathe [and not] get crazy about the traffic or about your to do list."