Alexandra David-Neel

Background reading :

Brown, Don.  Far Beyond the Garden Gate, Alexandra David-Neel's Journey to Lhasa.  Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 

David- Neel, Alexandra.  Initiations and Initiates in Tibet.    New York : Dover Publications, Inc., 1993.

David-Neel, Alexandra.  Magic and Mystery in Tibet.    New York : Dover Publications, Inc., 1971. 

David-Neel, Alexandra.  My Journey to Lhasa.    Boston : Beacon

Foster, Barbara, and Michael Foster.  The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel.    Woodstock , New York : The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc., 1998.

Implementation:   

Alexandra David-Neel describes herself by saying that even as a child, “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and set out for the unknown….I dreamed of wild hills, immense deserted steppes, and impassable landscapes of glaciers!”

That she became a Tibetan scholar, one of the most famous explorers of her time, and the first western woman to enter Lhasa makes evident the fact that she “dreamed and dared” to act on her dreams and indeed went far “beyond the garden gate”.

I would discuss with students generally and briefly, what does it mean to “go beyond the garden gate” and in what other ways can we “go beyond the garden gate” besides geographically. Are we in a way doing that when we study something about which we know little or nothing, as in the case of Tibet ? I then will discuss Alexandra David-Neel, her desire always to go “beyond the garden gate”, her studies of Tibet – her learning of the language, and then her trip to Lhasa.

I will then read the children’s book Far Beyond the Garden Gate with the students, show them the maps, and talk briefly about the Himalayas .