The Open Road (34 page)

I sometimes feel, in fact, that the very high air, intensity, and magic of Tibet have a transformative effect on many of those who visit it even on the page (or in the mind). I have tried in this book to be a general reader speaking to other general readers, and bringing little more than the curiosity and interest of a journalist who has never practiced Buddhism and knows little about it but is intrigued to see how it might expand the thinking of anyone, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. For those who wish to turn to books of real authority and wisdom on the subject, though, I would like to salute, and to direct readers toward, some of the works that have most deeply instructed me and brightened my life.

In relation to the life and lives of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the place to start is surely his second autobiography,
Freedom in Exile,
a vivid and characteristic blend of human reminiscence and sharp-eyed philosophy and politics, and
In Exile from the Land of Snows
by John Avedon, which, after twenty-five years, remains unsurpassed in its account of both Tibetan culture and its recent history. At a time when not many people had even heard of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama or were concerned about Tibet, Avedon gave himself so fully to these worlds that he discovered more, perhaps, than anyone had a chance to do thereafter.

Martin Scorsese’s film
Kundun
offers a mesmerizing evocation of the Dalai Lama’s years in Tibet (closely monitored by the man himself) and a searching view of how to hold to something worthwhile in the middle of the world’s challenges and confusions. Other warm and humane perspectives are offered by the Dalai Lama’s mother, Diki Tsering, in her book
Dalai Lama, My Son;
by his eldest brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, in the book he cowrote with Heinrich Harrer,
Tibet Is My Country;
and by his younger sister, Jetsun Pema, in
Tibet: My Story.
The Dalai Lama’s first autobiography, written in 1962,
My Land and My People,
offers an invaluable look at how he thought and saw his life soon after he came into exile, and Michael Goodman’s
The Last Dalai Lama,
though less reliable in terms of details and nuances than much that has come out since, remains a vibrant and thoughtful account that feels right in both tone and proportions.

For a fine and sympathetic description of the whole of the Dalai Lama’s family and the continuing and spirited debates between its members, Mary Craig’s
Kundun
is hard to beat.

When I am trying to get a general, nontechnical feel for what the Dalai Lama is striving to share with the wider world, the first books of his I turn to are
Ethics for the New Millennium
and
The Universe in a Single Atom,
which, respectively, show clearly and fully the moral vision he is trying to take around the world and the scientific explorations that most excite him. He devoted a great deal of time and attention to both works, and it seems safe to assume that both offer a highly accurate record of what he really wishes to communicate. An early collection of his,
Kindness, Clarity, and Insight,
compiled after his first travels to the United States, remains invaluable, and among the many remarkable books that have arisen out of particular teachings, the ones I have heard those close to the Dalai Lama most recommend include
The Four Noble Truths
(a general introduction to Buddhism),
The Good Heart
(in which the Dalai Lama addresses Christians on the Gospels), and
Destructive Emotions
(recording a seminal Mind and Life Institute meeting in which scientists and philosophers came together to see what reflexes and impulses tear us apart).

Other books that have helped me understand both Tibetan Buddhism and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s particular vision of transformation include Robert Thurman’s characteristically inspiring
Inner Revolution
and Matthieu Ricard’s
Happiness,
a clear and serene handbook to thinking differently about your life and embarking on the business of transformation, which offers some of the spaciousness of its author’s retreat in the Himalayas. Howard C. Cutler’s
The Art of Happiness
is rightly renowned for giving the Dalai Lama a chance to address specific case studies brought to him by a Western psychiatrist, and Victor Chan’s
The Wisdom of Forgiveness
gives us an intimate and completely convincing view of the man by whom so much of the world is fascinated.

As a glimpse into the Dalai Lama’s day-to-day life—and, more mysteriously, into the person who moves through it—Manuel Bauer’s book of documentary photographs,
A Journey for Peace,
is impossible to better.

The history of Tibet is a field that has drawn more and more arresting minds to it in recent years, to supplement some of the formative early work of scholars such as Giuseppe Tucci, Hugh Richardson, and David Snellgrove. Tsering Shakya’s
The Dragon in the Land of Snows
is an extremely solid and balanced account of Tibet’s history since 1947; Melvyn C. Goldstein’s
The Snow Lion and the Dragon
is both unsentimental and rigorous; Donald S. Lopez Jr.’s
Prisoners of Shangri-La
is a questioning look at the myths that surround Tibet, by a scholar who has long shown himself to be deeply sympathetic to Tibetans.

Some of the classic old books to read on Tibet before the Chinese occupation are Sir Charles Bell’s work on the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and his country; Peter Hopkirk’s entertaining popular history of early Tibetan exploration,
Trespassers on the Roof of the World;
Alexandra David-Neel’s richly colored accounts of her trips; and, of course, Heinrich Harrer’s immortal
Seven Years in Tibet.
Scott Berry’s
A Stranger in Tibet,
on the eccentric Zen monk Ekai Kawaguchi and his early ramblings around the country, has long been a personal favorite of mine, and in the early years of this century two excellent books have helped us to see and feel what Tibet is really like under Chinese rule: Patrick French’s agonized but deeply scrupulous
Tibet, Tibet
and Robert Barnett’s careful and fair-minded
Lhasa: Streets with Memories.
I have enjoyed, too, reading about modern Tibet as it strikes such contemporary Chinese visitors as Ma Jian, in
Red Dust,
and Xinran Xue, in
Sky Burial
(as well as such early visitors as F. Spencer Chapman, Peter Fleming, and Lowell Thomas Jr.).

Isabel Hilton’s
The Search for the Panchen Lama
remains the definitive work on the sudden death of the Tenth Panchen Lama and the tangled search for his successor, and Mick Brown’s
Dance of 17 Lives
provides a vivid and engaging look at the Karmapa legacy and its present complications. Thomas Laird’s 2006 book,
A Story of Tibet,
in which the author gets the Dalai Lama to travel through the whole of Tibetan history from his perspective, already seems to me one of the essential and irreplaceable books in the field, and allows one to hear and feel the Dalai Lama’s particular voice with unique immediacy.

For an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, I am grateful to many books, perhaps the most detailed and scholarly of which is Thupten Jinpa Langri’s
Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy.
Karen Armstrong’s
Buddha
is a no-nonsense small biography of Gautama himself, as seen by a onetime nun and scholar of many religions, while Pankaj Mishra’s
An End to Suffering
is a more probing and wandering look at his life and influence today by a thoughtful traveler. Huston Smith’s work on Buddhism is as lucid and inspired as his work on every other major religious tradition.

Some of the most spirited works I’ve read on Buddhism in the West include
The Buddha from Brooklyn,
by Martha Sherrill,
Dragon Thunder,
by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian,
Shoes Outside the Door,
by Michael Downing, and
Crooked Cucumber,
by David Chadwick. Rick Fields told the story of Buddhism coming to the West superbly in
How the Swans Came to the Lake,
Jeffery Paine retold it entertainingly in
Reenchantment,
and the works of Stephen Batchelor, Steve Hagen, Mark Epstein, and many others have brought complicated practices and ideas wonderfully into my reach.

Two of the most stirring and radiant works on the Buddhist path I have ever read—and reread and reread, at least five times each over the last twenty years—are Peter Matthiessen’s
The Snow Leopard,
about his discovery of Buddhism and reality in the high Himalayas, and Andrew Harvey’s
A Journey in Ladakh,
about his encounter with Tibetan Buddhism and some charismatic souls in northern India.