A few years ago, when a Tibetan meditation teacher was a houseguest at Satterfield's East Village apartment in New York, she'd hear him slip out the front door at two in the morning. His destination: Times Square. "He'd traveled everywhere," Satterfield says. "He said, 'if you can meditate in New York City, you're a very good practioner.'"

These days Satterfield, a yoga instructor, makes the same journey. "For a lot of people, meditating can get a bit precious, " she says. "They need to have the perfect quiet, the beautiful cushion, the cashmere shawl, the lovely beads. But in the Tibetan tradition, there's less distinction between our daily lives and our sitting practice." It's in the lotus position on a scrap of cardboard in Times Square that she really learns "how to be part of this huge, throbbing, pulsating existence without so much ego."