The Open Road
The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
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- USD 15.99
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- USD 15.99
Descripción editorial
One of the most acclaimed and perceptive observers of globalism and Buddhism now gives us the first serious consideration - for Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike - of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama's work and ideas as a politician, scientist, and philosopher.
'Pico Iyer's exceptionally intimate portrait of the Dalai Lama takes us beyond global celebrity image and into a true private audience with a leader of tremendous complexity.' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of bestseller Eat, Pray, Love
'A thoughtful and beautifully written portrait ...[Pico Iyer does an] exemplary job of explaining the complex spiritual and political history that underpins the extraordinary institution that is the Dalai Lama, and illuminating the extraordinary man who presently occupies it.' Daily Telegraph
Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father's) for the last three decades - a continuing exploration of his message and its effectiveness.
Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama's position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity.
Moving from Dharamsala, India - the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile - to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama's pragmatism, rigour, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This is a brilliant pairing of writer and subject. Iyer has known the Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of Tibet, for more than 30 years, thanks to a long-ago connection between the writer's father, an Oxford don born in India, and a young Dalai Lama. And so the acute global observer Iyer, a travel writer, essayist and novelist, has long followed the fortunes of the astute globalist Tibetan Buddhist, who travels the world but can never go home to his Chinese-occupied country. This is not a biography but an extended journalistic analysis of someone deep enough for several lifetimes, as Tibetan Buddhists believe. Iyer organizes his observations by smart descriptions of aspects of the Dalai Lama's work and character: icon, monk, philosopher, politician. This allows him to plumb different sides of His Holiness, whom he demythologizes even as he expresses a clear-eyed respect for the leader's achievements. Iyer reminds readers of paradoxes: the Dalai Lama is highly empirical, yet holds beliefs such as reincarnation that defy observation. He is a public figure who is diligent about elaborate and private religious practices. Like its subject, the aim of this book is ultimately simple: behold the man.
