In this short interview extract, Buddhist teacher and author Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, speaks about her first encounter with Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel has studied and practiced the Buddhadharma for 25 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. After meeting Kongtrul Rinpoche in Nepal, she became his first Western student. She has been intimately involved with his work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West, in particular to the development of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage.

She is the author of The Power of an Open Question.