Book Description:
The Dalai Lama presents the basic worldview of Buddhism while offering answers to some of life s most profound and challenging questions: Why are we in this situation? Where are we going? Do our lives have any meaning? How should we live our lives?<br><br>Basing his explanation on the twelve links of dependent arising as depicted in the Buddhist image of the Wheel of Life, His Holiness vividly describes how human beings become trapped in a counterproductive prison of selfishness and suffering, and shows how to reverse the process, changing the limiting prison into a source of help and happiness for others. Suffused with the Dalai Lama s intelligence, wit, and kindness, these teachings address such issues as how to deal with aggression from within and without; how to reconcile personal responsibility with the doctrine of selflessness; how to face a terminal illness; how to help someone who is dying; how to reconcile love for family with love for all beings; and how to integrate this practice into everyday life.<br> /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon.com Review /Source Content The Dalai Lama never shies away from the big questions. <I>The Meaning of Life</I> is a collection of lectures given in London in 1984 on the Buddhist worldview, before he had won the Nobel Peace Prize or become a bestselling author in English. Still, his message is essentially the same: practice nonviolence, cultivate altruism, and transform consciousness. In these lectures, the Dalai Lama begins with a painting of the wheel of cyclic existence, depicting the levels of karmic existence and symbols of the 12 links of dependent arising. In other words, this painting, presented in seven color plates, is a visual summation of the basic tenets of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama draws on the painting to explain the 12 links of dependent arising and then the path that leads to liberation from them. A nuts and bolts book, readers will enjoy it for its detail and for the broad range of questions elicited in listeners. <I> Brian Bruya</I>
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