An inside account of the Chinese invasion of Tibet told through the voices of three persecuted monks • Shares the true story of three monks’ heroic escape from occupied Tibet and the subsequent rebirth of the Bön religion in exile • Introduces Bön, Tibet’s oldest religion, and a traditional way of life extinguished by foreign occupation • Reveals details of the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet and the exodus of thousands of Tibetans to neighboring countries Providing an inside view into the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the tenets of Bön, one of the world’s oldest but least known religions, this book chronicles the true story of three Bön monks who heroically escaped occupied Tibet and went on to rebuild their culture through incredible resilience, determination, and passion. After taking his vows to become a Bön monk and completing a pilgrimage around 22,000-foot Mt. Kailash, the holiest mountain in Tibet, Tenzin Namdak envisions a life of quiet contemplation at Menri, Bön’s mother monastery. Instead, he finds himself fleeing for his life across the highest and most difficult terrain on the planet. After being joined by a CIA-backed warlord, Tenzin’s escape party is ambushed and he is severely wounded. Narrowly escaping execution by Chinese soldiers, the dying Tenzin is taken to a concentration camp, where he is afforded special consideration because of his status as a monk. He overcomes his nearly fatal wound and makes an arduous escape from Tibet over the daunting Himalayas. The other monks, life-long friends Samten Karmay and Sangye Tenzin, witness Tibet’s capital explode in a violent insurrection against Chinese rule. Escaping to Nepal, they worry about the survival of the Bön religion and begin collecting scattered works of Bön scripture. A chance meeting with British scholar David Snellgrove brings the three monks together again and dramatically changes their lives. Snellgrove invites Sangye, Samten, and Tenzin to spend three years in London on a Rockefeller Foundation grant. There, they hone their English and forge influential relationships, enabling Tenzin to answer the pleas for help from the Bön community by founding a settlement in exile in India. Sangye is chosen as the 33rd Menri Trizen, Bön’s highest office, and together the three monks help rebuild the nearly extinct Bön religion. Aside from the escape of the Dalai Lama, no other Tibetan escape has been so consequential for so many.

At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Monastery Rules discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan Buddhist societies and how that position was informed by the far-reaching relationship of monastic Buddhism with Tibetan society, economy, law, and culture. Jansen focuses her study on monastic guidelines, or bca’ yig. The first study of its kind to examine the genre in detail, the book contains an exploration of its parallels in other Buddhist cultures, its connection to the Vinaya, and its value as socio-historical source-material. The guidelines are witness to certain socio-economic changes, while also containing rules that aim to change the monastery in order to preserve it. Jansen argues that the monastic institutions’ influence on society was maintained not merely due to prevailing power-relations, but also because of certain deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs.

Fundamental outer and inner meditations from the Bon tradition of Tibet. Bon is the ancient pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, still practiced today.

'Brilliant and riveting. This book shows us that freedom is a choice we can all make' Gelong Thubten, author of A Monk's Guide to Happiness 'A fascinating story of an incredible life, told with unflinching honesty' Dr John Sellars author of Lessons in Stoicism ___________________________________________________________________________________ Lama Yeshe didn't see a car until he was fifteen years old. In his quiet village, he and other children ran through fields with yaks and mastiffs. The rhythm of life was anchored by the pastoral cycles. The arrival of Chinese army cars in 1959 changed everything. In the wake of the deadly Tibetan Uprising, he escaped to India through the Himalayas as a refugee. One of only 13 survivors out of 300 travellers, he spent the next few years in America, experiencing the excesses of the Woodstock generation before reforming in Europe. Now in his seventies and a leading monk at the Samye Ling monastery in Scotland - the first Buddhist centre in the West - Lama Yeshe casts a hopeful look back at his momentous life. From his learnings on self-compassion and discipline to his trials and tribulations with loss and failure, his poignant story mirrors our own struggles. Written with erudition and humour, From a Mountain in Tibet shines a light on how the most desperate of situations can help us to uncover vital life lessons and attain lasting peace and contentment.

"Author Paul Nietupski draws on the photographs and memoirs of Marion and Blanche Griebenow, Christian missionaries resident in the area for nearly twenty-seven years, as well as the memoirs of Apa Alo, a local leader whose family included some of the highest dignitaries of Labrang Monastery, to detail Labrang's unique and colorful Tibetan border culture."--BOOK JACKET.

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