Rande Brown ’71

After an eclectic lifetime of bringing East and West closer together through writing, translating, and psychotherapy, Rande died from esophageal cancer in New York City Oct. 13, 2025.

She joined our class in 1969, majored in East Asian Studies, and roomed with Tina Sung. In the ’70s, more compelled by Buddhist practice than theory, she worked at a unique institution in Tokyo that was performing research into the nature of the mind/body relationship. While there, she published her first major translation on consciousness, maintained a rigorous meditation practice, and began to explore her own history with respect to karma and reincarnation.

Rande moved back to New York City in 1981 and started East West Communications, a company that produced scores of cultural events in the performing and visual arts, highlighting interactions between the two hemispheres. She then co-founded Tricycle, America’s leading Buddhist magazine, developing programs aimed at transmitting Buddhist ideas and the techniques of meditation and mindfulness to the general population. She continued to translate and to write on contemporary Buddhist thought and Japanese culture. In 2002, she co-authored The New York Times bestseller Geisha, A Life. Later she completed a Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program, earned a MSW from New York University, and became a licensed psychotherapist, focusing on the intersection of Buddhism, spirituality, and psychology.

Rande’s last book, Live, Die, Repeat, will be published in June 2026.

The class extends its condolences to her family, friends and admirers.