Live Beautifully, Die Beautifully: Field Notes from the Edge of Impermanence

Live Beautifully, Die Beautifully is a moving memoir and spiritual guide that explores how mindfulness, compassion, and inner healing can transform even the deepest suffering. Through the extraordinary life story of Sister D., readers are invited to confront trauma, impermanence, and death with courage and grace. Blending intimate storytelling with practical meditations, this book offers a path toward living fully and dying peacefully.

One of life’s most profound questions is this: Have I lived a good life—and can I face death with peace rather than fear?

In Live Beautifully, Die Beautifully, Sister D. shares a deeply personal story of loss, resilience, and spiritual awakening that will inspire readers to reflect on their own lives with greater compassion and clarity.

Part memoir, part spiritual companion, Live Beautifully, Die Beautifully weaves together Sister D.’s extraordinary journey with more than fifteen guided meditations and practical mindfulness exercises designed to help readers heal emotional wounds, embrace impermanence, and approach death with dignity and peace.

Her story is one of profound suffering, but also of transformation, joy, and the enduring power of compassion. Born during the Vietnam War to an unknown American soldier and a Vietnamese mother who disappeared when she was only twelve years old, Sister D.’s life was shaped by abandonment, displacement, and grief. Sent to the United States with her younger brother by the grandmother who raised her, she endured racism, cultural isolation, and the devastating loss of the love of her life. Though she achieved success as a medical doctor, the weight of unresolved trauma ultimately led her to leave her career behind and become a Buddhist nun under the guidance of the renowned Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Sister Dang Nghiem is a disciple of the revered Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. After losing her mother at the age of twelve, she moved to the United States with her brother at the age of seventeen, where she learned English and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California-San Francisco. After suffering further tragedy and the loss of her partner, she quit her practice as a doctor to travel to Plum Village monastery in France, founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where she ordained as a nun in 2000. Her writing draws on her unique experiences as a physician, a nun, and an individual navigating diverse worlds. She is the author of four books: a memoir, Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010), Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015), Flowers in the Dark: Reclaiming Your Power to Heal from Trauma with Mindfulness (2021), and The River in Me: Verses of Transformation (2024).