Comes the Peace: My Journey to Forgiveness is a book about a young Western boy who was placed in a Tibetan monastery by his mother. It is published by Wisdom Books, and I think it should be required reading. I am reprinting the advertising copy in full, below:
"The extraordinary true story of a young American boy dumped in Nepal by his hippy parents at the age of three, who was then placed in a Tibetan monastery at six and his later arduous teenage quest to rediscover his roots and forgive his family. "At 17 with only a few meagre possessions and speaking little English, Daja Wangchuk Meston caught a plane to America, the unfamiliar land of which he was a citizen, to try and uncover his identity and mend long-severed ties with his family. In the early 1970s, when he was three years old he had been left in the care of a Tibetan family who in turn put him in Kopan monastery, where he was ordained as a monk at six. There, he was ostracized by the other young boy monks, who taunted him for his Caucasian physical traits, left so hungry he stole scraps of bread, and slept on a flea-infested straw mat. He longed for his mother's embrace, but she, turning her back on her rich Hollywood upbringing, (her father was renowned for the Bonanza Western TV series) had become a nun known as Ani Wongmo and thought her child would impede her spiritual journey. "The story of Wangchuk's self-generated ouster from Kopan monastery - he pretended to have slept with a prostitute - his eventual migration to the USA, his lifelong attempt to understand and reconnect with his parents, and his eventual and dangerous work on behalf of Tibetan rights under Chinese oppression make for compelling reading. "Wangchuk finally used his Buddhist upbringing and the love of a good woman - his young Tibetan wife- to learn that forgiving others can play a critical role in healing a damaged heart."