Memoirs of a Tibetan Lama

Have you ever wondered what it's like to live in a Tibetan monastery? Honeysuckle sweetness, pure spirituality, monks walking on air? Not quite. Although some Western writers have tried to turn premodern Tibet into a kind of spiritual utopia, Lobsang Gyatso, a monk for much of this century, has a more mundane story to tell. A monastery is like a small city, in which money and politics have as much to do with daily life as meditation and study, perhaps more. Lobsang Gyatso describes his own spiritual journey, from his early days as a pugnacious fighter, his discovery of the wonders of study, his struggle with monastery duties, such as collecting debts and holding house office, to his personal crisis during the great escape after the Chinese invasion, and finally his associating with the Dalai Lama and his efforts educating the exiled Tibetan youth. Lobsang Gyatso is nothing if not honest, and his bringing monastery life down to human level makes his own trials and realizations that much more relevant to the rest of us. In the end his honesty got him murdered, but the strength of his spirit lives on in his memoirs. --Brian Bruya