Memoirs of a Tibetan Lama

Rating:
Summary: important addition to Western literature on Tibet
Review: This book is a good antidote to the Western fantasy that all Tibetans are enlightened beings and the dream that the Tibetan monastery is a utopia. Lobsang Gyatso is a monk who comes through the ranks (rather than an incarnation); the tale of his mischievous childhood, struggles to study, and life in exile let the reader see how much work a life dedicated to religious practice is. Iconoclastic, frank, and sometimes hilarious, Lobsang Gyatso comes across as a practical and devoted monk. And despite the fact that readers are told early on that Lobsang Gyatso was murdered in 1997, the editor's account of his brutal killing comes as a shock, as it adds another painful story to the debate over the status of Dorje Shugden.