Memoir

Raj Mansukhani

I cannot say exactly when my friendship with Marj began. I can say for certain that I was drawn to her perceptiveness and wisdom the first time I sat in her class several years ago. It was a class in poetry, and she spent the entire session detailing the subtle intelligence of each of the five senses. I remember leaving the class with the notion that, until then, all my senses were blurry. There was so much about the world that I had failed to notice. This was due perhaps to the fact that I was a philosophy professor engaged with abstract ideas (although, coming to think of it, It was likely due to my perceptual laziness). My relationship with the world and others changed dramatically after that first class with Marj, so I sought her out to engage in frequent conversations. We shared personal stories, spoke intensely about our interest in literature, Buddhism, and flamenco, and shared our passion for Lorca and the duende. It didn’t take long for us to understand that our conversations often led to insights (I know it did for me) and that we shared a common set of spiritual concerns that eventually led us to work together to organize seminars at the Fo Guang Shan Temple near La Salle. What fascinates me most about Marj is that in every conversation with her, she always offers words of wisdom that I carry home with me. Sometimes they’re in the form of little narratives that she sprinkles throughout her conversations, and sometimes it’s just a short phrase that invariably sinks into the deepest layers of my psyche and emerges the next morning as a message cloaked in a symbolic dream. There aren’t too many people out there I would consider kindred spirits. They’re friends, sure, but Marj is way more than that. She’s a friend, a spiritual companion, an insightful teacher, and a true kindred spirit I hope to meet again in my future lifetimes.

Dr. Raj Mansukhani has been teaching philosophy at De La Salle University for over 30 years and is currently the chancellor of the Universal Wisdom Foundation, a local non-prof- it Buddhist organization disseminating Buddhist teachings in the Philippines. He has taught Philosophy of Science, Phenomenology, the Philosophy of the Unconscious, and Buddhist Philosophy. Dr. Mansukhani is taking his MS in Clinical Psychology at De La Salle University. He takes frequent (and much-needed) breaks from academic pursuits by playing flamenco guitar with a flamenco band he co-founded in 2004 after taking a series of intensive flamenco guitar courses in Seville and Granada. He also has a cat named Caramel that served as an inspiration for one of his poems.