Dr. David Shlim on medicine and compassion

Di Angelo Publications sat down with Dr. David R. Shlim, author of A Gentle Rain of Compassion, and asked him a few questions about his memoir, his writing/work process, and himself.

DAP: Can you give us a brief synopsis of your book ?

David: It’s a book about wanting to travel to the Himalayas of Nepal as an extension of my medical career and finding that there was something unexpected and special for me to learn at the hands of some of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist teachers in the world.

DAP: What was the inspiration/motivation for writing your book?

David: I learned about ways to train in compassion from these Tibetan lamas when I lived in Nepal and ran a busy medical clinic over a fifteen-year period. That led me to produce a book that described how this works, called Medicine and Compassion. I started writing my memoir as a way of explaining to readers how I came to be in a position to create that first book. But as the memoir evolved, I realized that I had many amazing stories to tell along the way.

DAP: What is the key takeaway you want people to have after reading your book?

David: Many travelers go to the Himalayas hoping that something will happen to them, even if this is initially subconscious. I saw this in so many of the travelers that I met. This book is how, in fact, something can happen when you go to this part of the world, and how that process played out in me. Compassion is not just an add-on to our lives, but it can be the central motivating force. I’d like the readers of my book to recognize that Buddhist philosophy can be true, not just an alternative view, but an accurate view of how life actually works. I was able to come to understand this through years of personal tutoring with great Tibetan masters, and I wrote the book to give people an insight into how that process can work. I learned that it’s possible to train in compassion by cultivating a calm and kind mind, while maintaining a desire to ease suffering in others. If you can do this, you can make your life much happier as well as the lives of those around you.

DAP: What inspires you?

David: There is nothing more inspiring to me than the profound wisdom and compassion of my closest Tibetan teachers, and the devotion of all their followers.

DAP: What does your writing/working space look like?

David: I have a home office above our garage that has a direct view of the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole. The room is also my shrine room, filled with the Buddhist statues and sacred paintings that I acquired over the years in Nepal, either as gifts or that I purchased myself.

DAP: What are you learning/listening to/reading right now?

David: I’m trying to tackle some philosophical texts that give a deeper understanding of the Tibetan Buddhist concept of emptiness.

DAP: Are there more books in your future? What about?

David: I’ve written 90 pages of a novel, in which a group of friends in Kathmandu must rescue one of their close friends who has been kidnapped, along with his trekking group, while they were trekking towards Mt. Kailash in Tibet. Due to the prevailing circumstances, the various governments involved are unable to act, so the expatriate friends in Kathmandu need to take it upon themselves to risk their own lives for their friend and the hostages.

I’m also producing online courses on step-by-step methods of training in compassion.

DAP: How do you select the books you want to read?

David: I like to relax by reading good thrillers, detective books, and courtroom dramas. I enjoy being carried along by a skillfully plotted book with clever dialogue that makes me want to keep turning the pages. I look forward to every book by John Sandford, for example.

DAP: Is there a book that you’ve read multiple times? What is it, and why do you keep going back to it?

David: I have bookshelves full of Tibetan Buddhist books that I pull out from time to time to re-read portions. My favorite book is The Way of the Boddhisattva, by Shantideva, an extraordinarily profound and poetic description of the ultimate ways that compassion can be practiced and attained.

DAP: Share one fun fact about yourself, something that your readers would never guess.

David: I was a tour doctor with the Rolling Stones between 2013 and 2015 on four different tours, covering Canada, the USA, Japan, China, and Australia.

Click here to purchase A Gentle Rain of Compassion.