Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West

Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West

by JeffreyPaine (Author)

Synopsis

The colourful tale of the successful flowering of an obscure, ancient Eastern sect in the modern world. In a single generation, Tibetan Buddhism developed from the faith of a remote mountain people, associated with bizarre, almost medieval, superstitions, to perhaps the most rapidly growing and celebrity-studded religion in the West. Disaffected with other religious traditions yet searching for meaning, huge numbers of Americans have found their way to the wisdom of Tibetan lamas in exile. Earthy, humorous, commonsensical, and eccentric, these flamboyant teachers; larger-than-life characters like Lama Yeshe and Chogyma Trungpa; proved to be charismatic and gifted ambassadors for their ancient religion. So did two Western women, born in Brooklyn and London's East End, whose home-grown religious intuitions turned out to be identical with the most sophisticated Tibetan teachings, revealing them to be reincarnated lamas. With great flair for both the sublime and the human, Jeffery Paine narrates in page-turning, richly informative fashion how Tibetan Buddhism, rarified and sensual, mystical and commonsensical, became the ideal religion for a "post-religious" age.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Edition: 1
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
Published: 16 Mar 2004

ISBN 10: 0393019683
ISBN 13: 9780393019681

Author Bio
Jeffrey Paine is the former editor of the Wilson Quarterly, the author of Father India, and the editor of The Poetry of Our World. He lives in Washington, DC.