Thomas

Dalai Lama: the Struggle for an Autonomous Tibet

Revisado: 07-03-13

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This book was interesting for me as a person who has only read a few of the Dalai Lama's works. It was not, however, about him as monk and mystic but primarily as the representative of the political struggle for a free or autonomous Tibet. The book has a very western orientation that almost merges Tibetan Buddhism into a feel-good, secular, tolerant agnosticism ready-made for European and American sensibilities. Apart from the reincarnation of the Lama, almost nothing of distinctive Tibetan Buddhist teaching is included, although we are told that this has been the principal study of the Dalai Lama's life. The concept of nothingness or voidness is mentioned but never discussed. Paul English reads very well and does an appealing version of the Dalai Lama's voice. The Dalai Lama's congenial personality comes across very well, and a reader can understand his charismatic appeal to westerners. But a reader gets almost no understanding of his religious role among Tibetans or of the depth and richness or diversity of Tibetan religious thought and practice. There is no hint of mystical experience in the book, nor any attempt to help me as a westerner really to understand what a living Buddha like the Dalai Lama means for a Tibetan devotee. We learn about the Dalai Lama as a man and political leader in a good way here. I want to know more.

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A Very Personal Book

Revisado: 09-24-10

Schaeffer writes clearly and passionately. His own history is the true subject of the book. He is thoughtful but also cutting in his critique of the new atheists, but he is completely unsparing in his contempt for "evangelical fundamentalists" who represent the childhood against which he rebelled. His utter lack of empathy toward those who seem to be like his father leads to an unjust portrayal of Rick Warren, for example. He idealizes Marine Corp. boot camp because his son became a Marine and writes beautifully about his love for his granddaughter. He consciously and selectively idealizes the Greek Orthodox tradition, but that is perhaps understandable. This is about him, after all.

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Goethe Beautifully Read

Revisado: 04-12-10

So little Goethe is available in audio form. This epistolary novel shows Goethe in his early Sturm und Drang period at his most romantic. The reader does a wonderful job conveying the barely controlled passionate longing that runs through the novel. I would love to hear a similarly beautiful reading of Goethe's Faust.

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