Book picks similar to
The Mirror of Dharma: How to find the real meaning of human life by Kelsang Gyatso
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Buddhism
Christmas Humphreys - 1951
The history, development, and present-day teaching of the various schools of Buddhism, the religion-philosophy which has moulded the life of much of the Eastern world.
Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule
Tsering Woeser - 2016
Most have died from their injuries. Author Tsering Woeser is a prominent voice of the Tibetan movement, and one of the few Tibetan authors to write in Chinese. Her stirring acts of resistance have led to her house arrest, where she remains under close surveillance to this day. Tibet On Fire is her account of the oppression Tibetans face and the ideals driving those who resist, both the self-immolators and other Tibetans like herself.With a cover image designed by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Tibet on Fire is angry and cogent: a clarion call for the world to take action.
The Broken Rules of Ten: Tenzing Norbu's First Mystery
Gay Hendricks - 2013
The Broken Rules of Ten invites readers to join Ten as he navigates his first brush with mysticism, mystery, and maybe even murder.Like most teenagers, Ten’s life is rife with change and emotional upheaval. In addition to his newfound fascination with girls and some unexpected bodily sensations, he’s been spending less time with his Parisian mother and more time in his Tibetan father’s Dharamshala monastery. This, in conjunction with the fact that his best friends, Yeshe and Lobsang, aren’t having the same revelations about the world around them, leaves Ten feeling puzzled and isolated.When the brilliant 17-year-old scholar Lama Nawang, already a legend and a star, takes the lonely boy under his wing, Tenzing senses that his luck is about to change—and it does, but not in the way he expects. He becomes entangled in a dark web of intrigue including the theft of a secret teaching, the betrayal of a community’s trust, and the mysterious death of a local Indian boy. Tenzing breaks almost every rule in the monastery, along with a young girl’s heart, as he struggles to recover the Buddha’s sacred text and uncover the real reason behind Lama Nawang’s cascading series of seemingly wrong actions.
Buddhism: Beginner's Guide: Bring Peace and Happiness to Your Everyday Life
Ian Tuhovsky - 2014
In this book I will show you what happened and how it was. No matter if you are totally green when it comes to Buddha's teachings or maybe you have already heard something about them - this book will help you systematize your knowledge and will inspire you to learn more and to take steps to make your life positively better! I invite you to take this beatiful journey into the graceful and meaningful world of Buddhism with me today! In This Book I Will Tell You About: -Why Would You Want To Incorporate Buddha's Teachings Into Your Life? -What Buddhism Is And What it Definitely Is Not? -What is the Essence of Buddhism? -Three Main Branches of Buddhism -Buddha's Life and Teachings -Basics of Buddhism (Five Basic Buddha's Principles) -How to Cease Your Suffering -Karma, Rebirth and Reincarnation; Difference between Rebirth and Reincarnation -What Happens After Death According to Buddhism? -Where and How to Start? -The Art of Meditation -Benefits of practicing Buddhism in Everyday Life+ My Personal Experiences! -Further Resources to Continue Your Journey!
Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero
Stephan Talty - 2010
The task before him was immense: to slip past a cordon of crack Chinese troops ringing his summer palace and, with an escort of 300, journey across the highest terrain in the world and over treacherous Himalayan passes to freedom—one step ahead of pursuing Chinese soldiers.Mao Zedung, China’s ruthless Communist dictator, had pinned his hopes for total Tibetan submission on controlling the impressionable Dalai Lama. So beloved was the young ruler—so identified with his country’s essence—that for him to escape might mean perpetual resistance from a population unwilling to tolerate an increasingly brutal occupation. The Dalai Lama’s minders sent word to the Tibetan rebels and CIA-trained guerrillas who waited on the route: His Holiness must escape—at all costs.In many ways, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was unprepared for the epic journey awaiting him. Twenty-two years earlier, government search parties, guided by prophecies and omens, had arrived at the boy’s humble peasant home and subjected the two-year-old to a series of tests. After being declared the reincarnation of Tibet’s previous ruler, the boy was brought to Lhasa to learn the secrets of Buddhism and the ways of ultimate power. Forced in the ensuing two decades to cope with aching loneliness and often stifling ritual—and compelled to suppress his mischievous personality—Gyatso eventually proved himself a capable leader. But no previous Dalai Lama had ever taken on a million Communist Chinese soldiers bent on stamping out Tibetan freedom.To keep his country’s dream of independence alive by means of a government in exile, the young ruler would not only have to brave battalions of enemy soldiers and the whiteout conditions waiting on the slopes of the Himalayas’ highest peaks, he’d have to overcome a different type of blindness: the naïveté intrinsic to his sheltered palace life and his position as leader of a people who considered violence deeply taboo. His mind made up, the young Dalai Lama set off on his audacious journey to India while behind him a Chinese army rolled over Lhasa, its advance hunter patrols in fierce pursuit of the man they most coveted. The 14th’s escape was an act of daring and defiance that represented Tibet’s last hope, and so the world watched, transfixed, as the gentle monk’s journey unfolded. Emotionally powerful and irresistibly page-turning, Escape from the Land of Snows is simultaneously a portrait of the inhabitants of a spiritual nation forced to take up arms in defense of their ideals, and the saga of an initially childlike ruler who at first wore his monk’s robes uncomfortably but was ultimately transformed by his escape into the towering figure the world knows today—a charismatic champion of free thinking and universal compassion.
Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land
Patrick French - 2003
The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book.Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet–including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight.
The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen
Namkhai Norbu - 1986
He discusses the base path and fruit of Dzogchen practice, and describes his education and how he met his principal master who showed him the real meaning of direct introduction to Dzogchen. By interweaving his life story with the teachings, he both sets Dzogchen in its traditional context and reveals its powerful contemporary relevance. The book is richly illustrated with photos of Buddhist masters, meditational deities, and Dzogchen symbols.
Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet
Xinran - 2004
Xinran made the trip and met the woman, called Shu Wen, who recounted the story of her thirty-year odyssey in the vast landscape of Tibet.Shu Wen and her husband had been married for only a few months in the 1950s when he joined the Chinese army and was sent to Tibet for the purpose of unification of the two countries. Shortly after he left she was notified that he had been killed, although no details were given. Determined to find the truth, Shu Wen joined a militia unit going to the Tibetan north, where she soon was separated from the regiment. Without supplies and knowledge of the language, she wandered, trying to find her way until, on the brink of death, she was rescued by a family of nomads under whose protection she moved from place to place with the seasons and eventually came to discover the details of her husband's death.In the haunting Sky Burial, Xinran has recreated Shu Wen's journey, writing beautifully and simply of the silence and the emptiness in which Shu Wen was enveloped. The book is an extraordinary portrait of a woman and a land, each at the mercy of fate and politics. It is an unforgettable, ultimately uplifting tale of love, loss, loyalty, and survival.
Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest
Jamling Tenzing Norgay - 2001
As Climbing Leader of the famed 1996 Everest IMAX expedition led by David Breashears, Jamling Norgay was able to follow in the footsteps of his legendary mountaineer father, Tenzing Norgay, who with Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1953. Jamling Norgay interweaves the story of his own ascent during the infamous May 1996 Mount Everest disaster with little-known stories from his father's historic climb and the spiritual life of the Sherpas, revealing a fascinating and profound world that few -- even many who have made it to the top -- have ever seen.
The History of Bhutan
Karma Phuntsho - 2013
In 2008, it emerged as the world’s youngest democracy and in the same year crowned the world’s youngest monarch. This was followed by the new King’s colourful wedding in 2011. Today, it continues to enchant the rest of the world with its policy of Gross National Happiness and has become a very popular destination for travel. But, despite its growing popularity and the rising scholarly interest in the country, Bhutan remains one of the most poorly studied places on earth. Karma Phuntsho’s The History of Bhutan is the first-ever attempt to cover the entire history of Bhutan in some detail in English, combining both traditional perspectives and modern academic analysis. Written by a leading expert on the country, the book tells the story of Bhutan in a narrative style interspersed with some analytical and topical discussion, and numerous citations and translations from earlier writings. It is primarily a historical account, but it also includes substantive discussions of Bhutan’s geography, culture and society to give the readers an incisive introduction to the country.
The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Pico Iyer - 2008
Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama's position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the remotest, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity.Moving from Dharamsala, India--the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile--to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West, where the Dalai Lama's pragmatism, rigor, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Padmasambhava
Unlike other translations of the Bar do thos grol, the so-called
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, Robert Thurman's takes literally the entire gamut of metaphysical assumptions. The Bar do thos grol, or as Thurman translates, The Great Book of Natural Liberation through Understanding in the Between, is but one of many mortuary texts of Nyingma sect of Tibetan Buddhism and is commonly recited to or by a person facing imminent death. Thurman reproduces it for this purpose, explaining in some depth the Tibetan conception of post-mortem existence. Over as many as 12 days, the deceased person is given explanations of what he or she sees and experiences and is guided through innumerable visions of the realms beyond to reach eventual liberation, or, failing that, a safe rebirth. Like a backpacker's guide to a foreign land, Thurman's version is clear, detailed, and sympathetic to the inexperienced voyager, including background and supplementary information, even illustrations (sorry, no maps). Don't wait until the journey has begun, every page should be read and memorised well ahead of time. --Brian Bruya
For Tibet, with Love: A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World
Isabel Losada - 2004
In this text, Losada explores whether it's possible for an ordinary person to change the world, just a little, and if something so serious can be achieved with joy in one's heart.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Chögyam Trungpa - 1973
The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today. This new edition includes a foreword by Chögyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham.