The book opens with a Chinese interrogator spitting and yelling in her face just after she has been seized for unfurling a “Free Tibet” banner at Mount Everest base camp. Live footage from the Everest Advance Base Camp shown on CBS television news Now, thirty years on, armed with her unconventional early training and having served on the frontlines of world efforts for peace and human rights, she has written a startling first book: Fortune Favors the Brave: An Extraordinary Memoir. He was training them, not to fight wars, but to wage peace.Īmong his recruits was Kiri Westby, a young woman born into a remarkable family in Boulder, Colorado. Their teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, chose mountain valleys and secluded woodlands for their mock battles, skilfully configuring them to bring a rising generation of teenagers face to face with their own hatred, fear and aggression. They formed armies, flew flags, infiltrated each others’ forces with spies, and laid the legions of their enemies low – all under the watchful gaze of one of the greatest Buddhist masters to flee Tibet and teach meditation in the west.

A daughter of the Buddha on the frontlines of war

Fortune favors the brave.