Saffron Days in L.A.: Tales of a Buddhist Monk in America

There is more to being a monk than meditating and walking around in spiffy robes. Just ask Bhante Walpola Piyananda, a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who has been serving the Los Angeles community for many years. Although one of the highest-ranking Theravadan monks in America, his spiritual generosity brings him to the aid of punks, prostitutes, and destitute immigrants. Saffron Days in L.A. is his story of these colorful encounters. Not only does he help reconcile a teenager with her strict parents, get a drunk off the bottle, and help a psychotic back to normal life, he explains how he does it. Occasionally, it's through chanting exercises or outside help, but mostly this compassionate, erudite monk picks out the perfect teaching from his own experience or from the vast corpus of Buddhist sutras that he seems to have in his head, and that does the trick. So here we get not only stories and stories within stories, but the basics of Buddhism in a form that's easy to digest. Sometimes, Piyananda's successes seem to come a bit too easily, like something from a Buddhist version of Touched by an Angel, but the teachings--about how to get along, be happy, and walk the Middle Path--still hit home. --Brian Bruya