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Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West
 
 
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Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West (Hardcover)

by J Paine (Author) "IN THE LONG YEARS before Tibetan Buddhism met the West, foreigners, and modernity, few Westerners and certainly only viceroy of India ever managed to cross..." (more)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.; 1 edition (16 Mar 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0393019683
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393019681
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,073,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

The colourful tale of the successful flowering of an obscure, ancient Eastern sect in the modern world. In a single generation, Tibetan Buddhism developed from the faith of a remote mountain people, associated with bizarre, almost medieval, superstitions, to perhaps the most rapidly growing and celebrity-studded religion in the West. Disaffected with other religious traditions yet searching for meaning, huge numbers of Americans have found their way to the wisdom of Tibetan lamas in exile. Earthy, humorous, commonsensical, and eccentric, these flamboyant teachers; larger-than-life characters like Lama Yeshe and Chogyma Trungpa; proved to be charismatic and gifted ambassadors for their ancient religion. So did two Western women, born in Brooklyn and London's East End, whose home-grown religious intuitions turned out to be identical with the most sophisticated Tibetan teachings, revealing them to be reincarnated lamas. With great flair for both the sublime and the human, Jeffery Paine narrates in page-turning, richly informative fashion how Tibetan Buddhism, rarified and sensual, mystical and commonsensical, became the ideal religion for a "post-religious" age.

About the Author

Jeffrey Paine is the former editor of the Wilson Quarterly, the author of Father India, and the editor of The Poetry of Our World. He lives in Washington, DC.
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IN THE LONG YEARS before Tibetan Buddhism met the West, foreigners, and modernity, few Westerners and certainly only viceroy of India ever managed to cross into Tibet proper. Read the first page
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging narrative of Tibetan Buddhism's arrival in the West, 13 Aug 2008
By ShriDurga - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West (Paperback)
Even those who already know the story will enjoy spending time between the pages of Jeffrey Paine's engaging narrative. Through profiles of four well-known teachers, plus a few lesser lights, he recounts Tibetan Buddhism's arrival in North America after being driven in mid-20th century from its native environment, a tale of cynical and world-weary westerners becoming re-enchanted with the world.

A regular contributor to national publications, Paine knows how to keep a reader's attention. The book never lags and I would guess that most readers will be unwilling to put it down at the end of the evening. When the occasion warrants, Paine also lets his sense of humor shine, as in his discussion of actor Steven Segal, the world's most unlikely reincarnated lama and the only one, Paine observes, capable of uttering _Dalai Lama_ and _motherf......_ in the same sentence.

The book's most interesting insights are found in the chapter on Hollywood, a place where many are infatuated with the Dalai Lama and where you can even find a few practicing Buddhists, most prominently Richard Gere. Paine argues that actors already share a world view consistent with Buddhism, that thoughts and actions create reality. This dovetails nicely with the American ethos of being able to reinvent oneself, to start a new life. Paine sees a correlation in the growth of Buddhism in a society raised on film. Where the Buddha declined to discuss the soul and instead focused on our moment-to-moment experience of life, so too does the cinema ignore the metaphysical in building reality from sound, motion, and feeling.

The first of the book's five sections covers what little was known about Tibet in the west before the Chinese invasion of 1951 through the story of Alexander David-Neel (1868-1969), one of the first westerners (and the first western woman) to spend years in Tibet and to return home to write about it. This is followed by chapters on two lamas who had a lasting influence on North American Buddhism: Thubten Yeshe, whose teaching tours sprouted more than a hundred study and mediation centers across the United States and Canada; and Chogyam Trungpa, who started what is today the only accredited Buddhist university in North America. From the exiles Paine moves on to profile two homegrown lamas, the first generation of western teachers: Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry), who spent 12 years in retreat and was only the second woman to be ordained in a Tibetan tradition; and Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (Alyce Zeoli), the world's first female western-born reincarnated lama. The fourth section traces Hollywood's infatuation with Buddhism, and the last features sketches of three work-a-day North American converts.

Except for those in the last section, the figures profiled here are quite well known and for many of those already familiar with Tibetan Buddhism in North America, Paine has little new to offer to the story. What he brings is a deft sense of narrative, as well as a sensitive and sympathetic understanding of people and Buddhism. It's not clear from the text nor from online references whether Paine is a practicing Buddhist. But his balanced treatment of some of Tibetan Buddhism's more controversial characters, ones that often invite polarized reactions, suggest more than a need to live up to journalistic standards, more than a desire to protect these figures (and by implication Buddhism) from ridicule, but a genuine Buddhist-like concern for the welfare of others and an ability to see that none of us are perfect beings.

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