Buddha Heart, Buddha Mind: Living the Four Noble Truths

""Dalai Lama"" on Amazon.com's search engine pulls up an impressive 186 matches with publication dates from 1983 to 2001, a prodigious outpouring by any assessment. Many of these titles, of course, are about the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, but quite a few credit His Holiness as the author. This is one such volume. Typically, however, this book is not technically ""written"" by His Holiness, but is actually a skillful transcription by Jigm Khyents Rinpoch of eight addresses the Tibetan leader delivered (and the subsequent question-and-answer periods) at the Institut Karma Ling in Savoie, France, in 1997. Not a book for beginners in Buddhism, this has considerable, complex depth that transcends the implied simplicity of the subtitle's ""Living the Four Noble Truths"" by addressing suffering and it cessation. This selection will, however, be of good value to advanced practitioners who can never have too much of a good thing. A notable exception for beginners is the seven pages of ""Specific Instructions on Meditation,"" in which the world's foremost practitioner and proponent of Tibetan Buddhism gives the benefit of his measureless experience in clear, useful terms. For all this cerebral material's weight, the Dalai Lama's charming sense of humor at times pokes through. This will no doubt satisfy and enlighten emerging Western bodhisattvas. (Nov.)