Nina Rao speaks with Wasfia Nazreen about her adventures as a mountaineer, her friendship with the Dalai Lama, her work as an activist, and the way she climbed her personal internal mountains.
Wasfia Nazreen is finest identified for being the one Bangladeshi and first Bengali on the earth to climb the Seven Summits, the very best mountains of each continent. She can also be the one lady to carry the simultaneous titles of Nationwide Geographic Explorer & Adventurer. An outspoken activist since her late teenagers, her ardour has all the time been pushed by causes near her coronary heart. A human-rights activist, an environmentalist, a author, educator, pilot, and producer – Wasfia wears many hats, all of that are grounded in sturdy foundations of meditation and self-realization practices. Be taught extra about her and observe her many adventures on her web site, Fb, Instagram, and Twitter
Function Fashions
Nina and Wasfia focus on her winding journey by way of life, from Bangladesh to America to India. Wasfia talks about her time in Dharmsala and the way she slowly grew to become mates with the Dalai Lama, who grew to become her function mannequin. She additionally shares tales of her friendship with the seventeenth Karmapa, who she’s identified since he was a younger age.
“I didn’t have any function fashions rising up after which one way or the other I manifested the best function mannequin I may have ever requested for, you recognize, His Holiness the Dalai Lama.” – Wasfia Nazreen
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Method a Mountain as a Pilgrimage (38:00)
Nina asks Wasfia about her adventures as a mountaineer and the way she went about climbing the Seven Summits. Wasfia talks about how fortunate she was to begin her mountaineering profession being so near the Himalayas, how she was taught to climb by Sherpas, why psychological preparation is so essential for the larger mountains, and the way climbing a mountain is sort of a pilgrimage.
“And I believe it’s crucial to offer that distinction that if you strategy a mountain as a pilgrimage versus if you strategy a mountain with the concept in your thoughts to beat her. As a result of realistically talking, we by no means, as human beings, can conquer any a part of nature. However that’s what the colonial mentality has taught us to imagine.” – Wasfia Nazreen
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Inside Mountains (1:05:25)
Nina inquires about Wasfia’s expertise in the course of the COVID pandemic. Wasfia talks about getting sick very early within the pandemic and utilizing the restoration interval as a time to work on purifying her karma and climbing her internal mountains. Nina asks Wasfia about her work as an activist, notably with regard to girls’s rights in Bangladesh. They shut out the dialog by relating Wasfia’s upcoming tasks.
“I believe there’s an intersectionality that we don’t, we aren’t all the time conscious of. And, you recognize, it solely advantages us if we take knowledge from so many various areas.” – Wasfia Nazreen
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Photograph by way of Wasfia Nazreen