Girl in a Box
Seeking Enlightenment as a Tibetan Buddhist Nun
Paldrom Catharine Collins
Paperback
ISBN 9781966608257
$24.95 US
eBook available
May 12, 2026
An Oklahoma girl’s years of immersion in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery
Girl in a Box: Seeking Enlightenment as a Tibetan Buddhist Nun chronicles a five-year immersion in the paradigm-altering world of a Tibetan retreat center in New York’s Hudson Valley. It weaves flashbacks of Collins’ former life with her ongoing attempts to surrender to monastic life. She travels to India with her teacher, takes vows as a nun, then returns to life at the monastery where she works as a house cleaner days and evenings to earn money to attend a dreamed-of three-year retreat. In her struggle to become a stellar nun, she conducts a one-sided jealous rivalry with a beautiful and “perfect” young nun—whom she later discovers is hiding a shocking secret. She also describes the grueling practice of performing over 100,000 prostrations and her disillusionment upon learning of the imperfect humanity of her revered teachers.
As the underlying grace of those years spent with the Tibetans come into focus, Collins sees that she is like a girl who packs her suitcase and sets off down the road only to discover she has nowhere to go. What she is seeking––the very “home” she longs for––has been right there all along. Hiding in plain sight; masked in a cloak of the suffering she so longs to escape. Overlooked. Because, as the Tibetans teach—it’s too simple, too obvious, too close.
Paldrom Catharine Collins’ introduction to religion was at the First Baptist Church she attended with her parents, until she left as a young woman seeking enlightenment—first in the mystical practices of the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana, then for fourteen years immersed in the non-dual teachings of Gangaji, in the Hindu Advaita lineage of Ramana Maharshi. Today, she’s found a connection to contemplative Christianity, serving on the board of directors of the Journey Center Association, and completing their two-year spiritual director certification program.
Paldrom and her husband, George, live in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Their business, Neulia-Compulsion Solutions, provides counseling services for sex and porn addicts and their partners. In 2011, their book A Couple’s Guide to Sexual Addiction: Step-by-Step Plan to Rebuild Trust & Restore Intimacy was published by Adams Media. She’s also authored articles published in Inquiring Mind and Buddhadharma (Lion’s Roar) magazines.
“With vivid prose and a storyteller’s grace, this memoir traces Paldrom’s decades-long spiritual quest for enlightenment—from Southern Baptist beginnings to the grueling intensity of a Tibetan Buddhist retreat. With unflinching honesty, she invites readers into the heart of devotion, disillusionment, doubt, and ultimately, the quiet clarity of coming home to herself. Uplifting and deeply human, her journey is a testament to the truth that what we seek is already our true nature—waiting to be seen, felt, and lived.” —Dr. Gail Brenner, author of The End of Self-Help and Suffering Is Optional
“Girl in a Box asks, ‘How do I find relief from suffering?’ And ‘How do I find a home for my heart?’ Reading Paldrom’s memoir is like taking a long walk with a dear and wise friend, one who tells her story with the kind of vulnerability that helps you to see and tell your own.” —Emily Conway, writer, spiritual companion, and creator of A Thin Space Substack, and the Threshold podcast
