Buddhism Beliefs, Facts and History

Although one cannot learn to practice Buddhism from books, just as you cannot learn to swim by reading about swimming, these books will give you information and help you to understand concepts of the practice.

While the Western world was launching the scientific revolution that would ultimately produce an industrialized society, parts of India, Tibet, and China launched a revolution of inner science that began a social revolution that we now have an opportunity to complete. Based on his in-depth knowledge of Tibet and a thirty-year close relationship with the Dalai Lama, Robert Thurman gives us a handbook for enlightening ourselves and the world. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

The first American Tibetan Buddhist monk, Thurman currently teaches at Columbia and was chosen by Time as one of the 25 most influential people of 1997. What's more, actress Uma Thurman is his daughter. Here, he argues that we can now complete the inner revolution begun in the East when the West was industrializing.Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Appeared in: Reed Elsevier Inc. (c) Copyright 2006, Cahners Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Thurman, author of Essential Tibetan Buddhism (1996), was the first Westerner to be ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He briefly describes his studies in India under the Dalai Lama's direction in the mid-1960s and his subsequent realization that without a Tibetan Buddhist community, he could not be a monk in the U.S. So he chose the next best thing, academia, and became a renowned Buddhist scholar. He is now convinced that we are entering a time of spiritual growth and that Buddhism is integral to this movement toward enlightenment. As he expounds on this observation, he places Buddhist thought firmly within historical and scientific contexts, explaining that Buddhism is not a religion but a scientific "elucidation of causation" and that learning to be free from self-obsession and negative emotions is the first step in a spiritual awakening. Thurman's lucid teachings infuse the concepts of liberty and happiness with cosmic significance and do much to illuminate the reasons for Buddhism's blooming in the West. (Reviewed March 15, 1998)1573220906Donna Seaman Appeared in: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.