The Sacred Life Of Tibet

Provides excellent insight into both ancient and modern Tibet.

Probing the relationship between modernist literary experimentation and several key strands of occult practice which emerged in Europe from roughly 1894 to 1944, this book sets the work of leading modernist writers alongside lesser known female writers and writers in languages other than English to more fully portray the aesthetic and philosophical connections between modernism and the occult. Although the early decades of the twentieth century-the era of cocktails, motorcars, bobbed hair, and war-are often described as a period of newness and innovation, many writers of the time found inspiration and visionary brilliance by turning to the mysterious occult past. This book's principle intervention is to reimagine the contours and boundaries of literary modernism by welcoming into the conversation a number of significant female writers and writers in languages other than English who are often still relegated to the fringes of modernist studies. Well-remembered poets and novelists such as Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, and Aleister Crowley were tied to occult beliefs, and this book sets these leading figures alongside less well-remembered but equally splendid modernists including Paul Brunton, Mary Butts, Alexandra David-Neel, Florence Farr, Dion Fortune, Hermann Hesse, and Rudolf Steiner. From the little magazines where occultism and Fabianism were comfortable companions, to consulting rooms of psychoanalysts where archetypes were revealed to be both mystical and mundane, to the forbidden mountain trails that led to formidable spiritual teachers, the conditions of modernism were invariably those conditions which inspired a return to the occult traditions that many thinkers believed had long evaporated. Indeed, in many ways these traditions were the making of the modern world. By uncovering hidden hopes and anxieties that faced a newly modern Western Europe, this book demonstrates how literary modernists understood occultism as a universal form of cultural expression which has inspired creative exuberance since the dawn of civilisation.

Tibetan religion and the art which illuminates it are a summation, an interweaving of many strands - shamanic spiritualism, magic myth, insights into time and death, combined in a unique form of Buddhism. Tibet retained its own religious and imaginative art for centuries without interference from the outside world, until the Chinese invasion of 1950 brought wholesale destruction. What remains - inside and outside Tibet - is doubly precious. The magnificent and mysterious arts of Tibet are much more than an adjunct to spiritual life; they are dwellings for the divine and images of inner states. Here text and illustrations together enter into the meanings of Tibetan imagery and practice, and reveal both the sources and living manifestations of Tibetan Buddhist belief and philosophy.

• The record of a spiritual journey through an extraordinary land, and of the devoted pilgrims who seek to climb Mount Kailas. • Two Americans recount their experiences during the sacred pilgrimage to one of the most remote places on Earth. • With more than 100 color photographs that capture the awe-inspiring landscape and the tireless determination of the pilgrims. In a remote corner of western Tibet, in one of the highest, most pristine places on Earth, rises a sublime snow-clad pyramid of rock and snow--Mount Kailas. To Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims this 22,028-foot mountain is the throne of the gods, the "Navel of the Earth," the place where the divine takes earthly form. For more than a thousand years these pilgrims have journeyed here to pay homage to the mountain's mystery, circumambulating it in an ancient ritual of devotion that continues to the present day. Spinning prayer wheels, chanting mantras, and prostrating themselves at shrines, the pilgrims make the arduous climb toward the physical and emotional high point of the journey, the lofty pass known as the Dolma La. With spectacular color photography and vivid travel writing, Tibet's Sacred Mountain provides a stunning account of this awe-inspiring landscape, and of the variety, vitality, and sheer determination of the pilgrims who venture there. Both photographer Russell Johnson and writer Kerry Moran have made the difficult pilgrimage around the mountain several times. Tibet's Sacred Mountain is the record of their inspiring journey that opens a window on a magical land of pure light and dazzling color where the temporal and the eternal unite and where every feature of the landscape holds its own divinity.

Ever since the first European travelers reached Tibet six centuries ago, Westerners have been fascinated and tantalized by tales of that legendary, remote mountain civilization. Today, Tibet 's peaceful , integrated way of life; deeply felt Buddhist tradition; and its culture rich in art, architecture, dance and music have all but disappeared, gradually replaced by the trappings of life introduced since the Chinese take-over of the 1950s. Most of the 3,000 monasteries and temples that once dotted the Tibetan countryside have been destroyed or converted into museums. Only in a few scattered emigre communities, in the treasures hastily smuggled out by 100,000 refugees who fled Tibet in 1959, and in a handful of photographs, is the old Tibet remembered and preserved. Tibet: The Sacred Realm brings together for the first time a selection of more than 140 of these rare photographs, taken from 1880 to 1950 by more than twenty intrepid adventurers, naturalists, explorers, scientists, and missionaries, who were among the very few in the West to travel to Tibet. In this valuable visual record the forward-looking thirteenth Dalai Lama sits in exile in India surrounded by his high officials; one of Tibet's wealthiest families poses in their Western-style dining room; the artificial lake of Lhasa reflects the imposing gilded roofs of the Potala Palace; Buddhist monks perform sacred dances in ornate animal masks; pilgrims circumambulate the holy city; and monks and sheepskin-bundled nomads gather on the vast northern plains to listen for the first time to a visitor's gramophone. Selected from the collections of twenty-three institutions' archives and private sources in Europe and the United States, the photographs represent the finest work of the explorer-photographers Alexandra David-Neel, Brooke Dolan, George Taylor, Ilya Tolstoy, and Claude White, among others, including the Tibetan photographer Sinam Wangfel Laden-La. Facing inclement weather, the threats of bandits, the objections of the lamas, the countless other hardships, these photographers still managed to distill the essence of Tibet's mystery and fascination. Recalling his early years in Tibet, Buddhist scholar, translator, and son of the former chief state oracle of Tibet, Lobsang P. Lhalungpa adds another dimension to the story revealed in the photographs. He shares his recollections of a boyhood in Lhasa, his training under the most revered Tibetan lamas, his life as a monk official in the Dalai Lama's government, and his sorrowful departure from his native land: "I mounted my favorite gelding, which had been saddled with its finest saddle cover. As I bent down to tuck the folds of my clothes under one leg, my round, fur-and-brocade-trimmed hat slipped off my head and fell to the ground. I remember feeling instant apprehension. Was this a sign that I would never see Lhasa again?" As the technological age threatens to swallow, one by one, the unique civilizations of the world, the lessons to be learned from the age-old traditions of Tibet become all the more valuable. Tibet's past, illuminated here by glimpses of special vision, offers profound spiritual insight and a majestic feast for the eye. The photographs are introduced by a preface by his Holiness the Dalai Lama. "Whatever the fate of Tibet, the spiritual essence of the Sacred Realm remains in the hearts of the Tibetan people. Our cultural heritage lives, too, in the handful of photographs taken in our country before 1950, all the more precious because they preserve a sense of time and place that now exists only in our memories."--Lobsang P. Lhalungpa from the Chronicle

25th Anniversary Edition Over 3 Million Copies Sold 'I couldn't give this book a higher recommendation' BILLY CONNOLLY Written by the Buddhist meditation master and popular international speaker Sogyal Rinpoche, this highly acclaimed book clarifies the majestic vision of life and death that underlies the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It includes not only a lucid, inspiring and complete introduction to the practice of meditation, but also advice on how to care for the dying with love and compassion, and how to bring them help of a spiritual kind. But there is much more besides in this classic work, which was written to inspire all who read it to begin the journey to enlightenment and so become 'servants of peace'.

The Complete Story of the Dalai Lamas His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is known to the world for his efforts to preserve Tibetan culture and for his inspiring spiritual teachings. Often unnoticed, however, is the long, colorful history from which this most beloved of holy men has emerged. In Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama, Alexander Norman tells this story in full for the first time, from Tibetan Buddhism’s foundational narratives to the present-day crisis faced by Tibet. And what a story it is. Along with dedicated monks selflessly serving the Tibetan people, among His Holiness’s spiritual forebears there are a Dalai Lama who waged wars, a womanizing and inebriated poet, and several who wound up dead following disputes over temporal power. Also, while Western practitioners focus on Tibetan Buddhism’s liberating vision of enlightenment, it simultaneously contains ritual practices of prophecy and magic, as well as a vivid pantheon of deities and demons. In the end, although Tibet falls short of the Western myths of a Himalayan utopia, by illuminating the historical struggle toward compassion and selflessness embodied in the Dalai Lama lineage, Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama ultimately reveals a reality that is vastly more compelling than any romance of “Shangri-La” and provides deeper reasons for admiring Tibetan tradition.

Chronicling the inner as well as the outer journey, an influential author offers his personal view of his spiritual adventure amid the breathtaking vistas of the Himalayas.