Lama Surya Das

ama Surya Das, author of the bestselling Awakening the Buddha Within, is the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition. In this elegant, inspiring book, he integrates essential Buddhist practices with a variety of other spiritual philosophies and wisdom traditions, to show you how to create a personalized spiritual practice based on your own individual beliefs, aspirations, and needs. Through reflections on his own life quest, thoughtful essays, and entertaining stories, Surya Das examines the common themes at the heart of any spiritual path, including faith, doubt, love, compassion, creativity, self-inquiry, and transformation. He then explores prayer, yoga, chanting, guided meditations, breathing exercises, and myriad other rituals, providing practical examples of each that we can use day-to-day to nurture our inner spirit. - from the publisher… (mere)

I listened to the abridged version of this book read by the author. He had quite and interesting journey as a Jewish boy from Long Island, to the Tibet during the wild sixties.

Although Tibetan Buddhism sounds to me like a fundamentalist type of religion, the overall principles resonated with me completely. The awareness that we are only a small part of a great divine whole is a beautiful idea, and explains the diversity of human journeys some of which are extreme in their difficulty while others are cut short and seem to lack any value for the person living them.

I always thought that life is precious, more precious than eternity, simply because of its transient and fleeting nature, so the principle of living in the moment is paramount for a peaceful existence.
This book is a landmark for me in my spiritual journey and I think I will read it again in its printed and unabridged form.… (mere)