The Way to Freedom: Core Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism

Great teachers seem to walk alongside those to whom they speak, when in fact they are all the while leading down the path that they illuminate. In this slender volume, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama speaks with a quiet, modest grace that is not without wry humor as well. Both a primer for the merely interested and a solid course of study for the advanced student of Tibetan Buddhism, this readable treatise, while walking the fine line between proselytism and conviction, cogently considers the timely necessity and benefit of spiritual study; the criteria for selecting a teacher; the logical reasoning of the Buddhist concepts of death, rebirth, refuge, karma etc.; ``The Four Noble Truths''; and the Bodhisattva model of ideals and action. This first volume in the publisher's new Library of Tibet series affirms its own assertion that ``Buddhism is a treasure meant for the entire world.'' (Nov.)