Haley Barker

When Soviet revolutionaries took control of Mongolia in 1924, Urga, the country’s capital, was the seat of an ancient and thriving Buddhist culture. The Eighth Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, an authoritative Tibetan lama (outranked only by the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama), presided over a massive ecclesiastical structure that formed the bedrock of Mongolia’s society. With a historically nomadic populace, Mongolia first developed permanent cities around its monasteries, with Urga being the largest.

In the early 1970s, Allen Ginsberg was performing shows and poetry readings throughout San Francisco with accompaniment from the Kailas Shugendo Mantric Sun Band, an eccentric ensemble from a local Buddhist commune.

In the 1990s, Damchö Diana Finnegan found herself at an existential crossroads. After seven years as a finance and technology journalist in New York City and Hong Kong, then as a freelance correspondent across Asia, her career was thriving. Her finances were comfortable. She had seen much of the world. Yet something was wrong.