Caregiving and the Art of Presence

In this tender, candid memoir spanning the last decade of her mother’s life, a Vietnamese American Zen teacher shares the deep challenges, unexpected gifts, and pathways through the overwhelming exhaustion and isolation of caregiving with the practice of mindfulness.

Ordaining as a Buddhist nun right after university, the author set out to study and practice mindfulness under the tutelage of Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh, a war refugee and celebrated peace activist. When the health of her beloved mother, Ma, begins to decline, she is confronted with the challenge of applying Zen teachings on compassion and equanimity to real life. Through caring for Ma, a widow who had taken her five small children on a rickety boat onto the open seas to seek refuge from the war in Vietnam—and raised them in America singlehandedly—Sister Tue Nghiem discovers insights on self-care and healing in her own mind and body.

Drawing on her lifetime of mindfulness practice and the ancestral wisdom of Zen, she explores how a caregiver can remain grounded, compassionate, and free while navigating the emotional weight of a parent’s declining health. Through the author’s journey with her mother, she reveals how developing the art of presence and mindfulness can be the keys to provide connection, clarity, and peace, even in the most difficult moments of caregiving.

As well as being a moving story of a woman’s love for her mother, the book includes a resource section with Zen teachings on presence for caregivers.