PRAISE FOR
Why the Dalai Lama Matters
His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet and the World
Dr. Thurman clearly describes how the 14th Dalai Lama can forge a path to a far better world in our time. As Albert Einstein urged, we must engage a different level of thinking to help solve the signifi cant problems we face, problems often caused by our ordinary assumptions. The Dalai Lama is a unique exemplar of a different, vital, inclusive, and powerfully effective way of thinking. This wonderfully written, compelling book invites us to freedom.
--
Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness
No one has worked harder to bring Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, and the special power of the Dalai Lama to American audiences than Robert Thurman. Long may he write and, as in this latest work, bring learning and spirit, great vigor, and close knowledge together.
-- Pico Iyer, author of The Open Road and Sun After Dark
I could not put this book down. I found it powerfully inspiriting to imagine a positive alternative to the sixty-yearlong tragedy wrought by China in Tibet. As Robert Thurman shows us, by reversing its colonialist cultural genocide in Tibet (and so inspiring a reversal of the murderous policies of the regimes in Myanmar and Sudan), China could truly emerge as a responsible world power and take its place within the moral community of nations.
--
Mia Farrow, actor, activist, and humanitarian
This book kindles hope for Tibet, for China, and for peace. It listens deeply to the Dalai Lama, making clear what he offers and can accomplish. It vividly envisions the freedom the Tibetan people urgently need and the respect China desires from the entire world.
-- Uma Karuna Thurman, actor, and activist
PRAISE FOR
Infinite Life
From Publishers Weekly
One day more than 40 years ago, when Thurman was a
21-year-old novice monk (the first Western Tibetan Buddhist monk), he had a
physical experience that showed him how the idea of reincarnation, so vast
and impossible to verify, can transform our lives right here and now. In his
follow-up to Inner Revolution, the Columbia University professor describes
how he was walking down a road in New Jersey, sent by his Tibetan teacher to
buy milk for tea, when he suddenly experienced the lifting or release of a
familiar "push-pressure" around his tail bone. "The pressure gone, I
immediately saw that I had always been feeling as if I were being pushed
along from behind toward my destination, not only to the grocery store on
Route 9 but to my destiny in life, my future in general." Taking stock, he
realized that under all of his ordinary thoughts, he had been pondering the
Buddhist understanding of the "beginninglessness" of life. Here, in a guide
that can be read through as daring thought experiment or delved into as a
workbook, Thurman seeks to impart a sense of the inner freedom, the literal
lightening up, that becomes possible as we begin to understand that we are
all participants in an "infinite life." Thurman explores related
transcendent virtues: wisdom, generosity, justice, patience, creativity,
contemplation and making art in the service of others. He offers meditations
but always returns to the larger truth that true enlightenment—"true
awakening to the infinite"—is never an escape from life but a state of
awareness and compassion for other living beings. Among the riches offered
here is the insight that we do not become faceless blobs as we realize our
selflessness and the infinite nature of our lives but true individualists.
Liberated from a fear of death and isolation, confident that we are in a
long-term relationship with life that can never be severed, we can begin to
help ourselves and others to happiness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
From Tricycle, Spring 2004
"With Infinite Life, Robert Thurman...offers what
may become his most influential book to date."
“Robert Thurman is a living treasure, one of today’s
most provocative spiritual thinkers."
-- Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence
PRAISE FOR
Circling the Sacred Mountain
"A lively circumambulation of Asia's holy
mountain in Tibet, illuminated by Tenzin Thurman's passionate teachings."
--Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard
"A fine adventure and a brilliant
direct pipeline to the ancient teachings of Tibet."
--Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart
"This extraordinary book is a dream
come true. Who would not wish to be taken on pilgrimage to the holiest mountain in the
world by a golden-tongued giant of a teacher? It is not the altitude that takes our breath
away as we read, it is the living force of Professor Thurman's dharma. By his own example,
he makes us see that it is indeed possible to go to pieces without falling apart."
--Mark Epstein, M.D., author of Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart
"Pilgrimage is a timeless spiritual
practice, a way to transform ourselves and awaken to the natural holiness of life. Go on
this spiritual adventure with one of our preeminent Tibetan tour guides, wise Bob, and his
friend and fellow pilgrim, Tad. Take up this book; circumambulate this holy power place.
Join the sacred circle."
--Lame Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within
"This is no mere tale of a trek. Deep
Buddhist wisdom, driven from the Himalayas by blind arrogance, has been given no choice
but to search the world for new hearts and homes. To embrace this book, to circle its
radiant inner mountain, is to defy Chinese occupation and harbor Tibet's exiled,
ever-joyous soul."
--David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K
"Tibetan Buddhism has recently become
fashionable in the West...but Thurman and Wise go beyond the buzz to demonstrate that it
is also a religion rich in history and teaching, complex in myth and story...The tale of
this pilgrimage--part high adventure, part Buddhist instruction--is certain to empower and
inspire readers on their own spiritual adventures.
-- New Age Magazine
A guru-and-disciple account of a pilgrimage to a Tibetan Buddhist sacred site. Thurman (Religion/Columbia Univ.; Inner Revolution, 1998, etc.), president of Tibet House in New York City, teamed up with his former student and surrogate son, Wise (Tesla, 1994) and other pilgrims on a 1996 journey to Mount Kailash in Tibet. This is their account of the journeyor rather, Wise's account, because apart from Thurman's autobiographical introduction, his contributions consist of his daily teachings from the trip, which Wise tape-recorded. Since all of the trip participants were novices to Buddhism, this dharma/teaching is geared for the beginner and offers a helpful introduction to esoteric (tantric) Buddhism. As the pilgrims circle Mount Kailash, the most revered peak in Tibet, Thurman outlines the spokes of "the blade wheel of mind reform,'' encouraging the hikers to empty themselves of samsara (suffering) and to practice compassion for all beings. (All beings, that is, except for the occupying Chinese, who are vilified and stereotyped throughout the book as warlike, secular, and universally cruel, while the Tibetans' "whole culture . . . [is] magical''). Apart from its overt political message and more oblique spiritual instruction, the book also extends to us the rare chance to enjoy armchair traveling in an area off-limits to casual tourists. Wise's sections make for an absorbing travelogue, complete with descriptions of altitude sickness and an exciting tundric mountain climb near the end (shades of Into Thin Air). But his own spiritual odyssey gets wearisome; his struggles with personal responsibility, alcoholism, and narcissism are so pervasive that the reader begins to wish for a less introspective narrator. Wises relationship to Tenzin (as Thurman is called by friends and family) is also much less interesting than Wise thinks it is. Valuable for its teaching and its setting, then, but marred by Wise's self-preoccupation.
PRAISE FOR
Inner Revolution
Amazon.com
Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman (yes, he is the father of Uma) was named one of Time
magazine's 25 most influential people in 1997. Here's why: Thurman has a knack for helping
laymen understand the teachings and history of Buddhism while also explaining why it has
taken root in the West. Thurman was the first Westerner to be ordained as a monk in the
Tibetan Buddhist tradition after studying under the Dalai Lama in 1964. In this highly
polished memoir he tells the story of his pupilage under His Holiness, which was a frolic
in Sunday school compared to the task of integrating Buddhism into cold war America. This
is an optimistic and highly satisfying discussion of how Buddhism has shaped the life of
one fascinating scholar as well as the course of Western spirituality.
-- Gail Hudson
The New
York Times Book Review
What gives pungency to Inner Revolution is the calmly maintained assertion that
America is the place and that this is the time in which the Buddha's vision may have its
most opportune moment.... Such a conviction obviously animates the life and work of Robert
Thurman, and this book, both testimonial and invitational, addresses in a compelling if at
times relentlessly optimistic argument the palpable desires of an exhausted culture eager
to go on pilgrimage from "me" to meaning.
-- Peter J. Gomes
Utne
Reader
...a spiritual memoir that weaves the author's personal quest for enlightenment into
his wider historical narrative. Taken on its own terms, it ultimately proves hard not to
enjoy.
-- Jeremiah Creedon
