Essential Teachings

By Dalai Lama XIV

Book Overview

Essential Teachings presents the first English translation of a series of talks given in 1974 by the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya, India--the site of the Buddha's enlightenment--to a gathering of Tibetan... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556431929
• ISBN13: 9781556431920
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A sound introduction to the Buddhist mindset

The Dalai Lama here summarizes 37 practices essential to living and understanding in the Buddhist tradition. The practices themselves offer many fine points of moral enlightenment, including passages that hearken to the "turn the other cheek" message that is also inherent in the Christian tradition. Readers will probably relate to some of the moral precepts of Buddhism better than others. Most difficult for the Western reader to grasp is the tradition of there being "no self" and the realization "emptiness" (shunyata; the cessation of desire) being the highest state that an aspiring Buddhist can attain. I would recommend reading this book, if you can acquire it, and simply warn that the second half deals with ideas of Buddhist metaphysics and emptiness that are not as accessible as the first half of the book.

Practical and well written

This book is a great resource for those wishing to practice the principles of Buddhist living. It introduces and explains the essential practices of Buddhism. Great introduction and written in a way that anyone can understand. There is noone better than the Dalai lama to get this crucial knowledge from. Definitely recommended.

A jewel of spiritual wisdom

This is an audacious and courageous book by a living lesson in love, the Dalai Lama himself. The teaching here, to echo the words from Shantideva, is itself the "living ground of love for innumerable beings." And this ground, uncovered and cultivated within, becomes a seedbed of compassion for ourselves and for others.