Guru Rinpoche: His Life and Times

(Hardback)

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To Tibetan Buddhists Guru Rinpoche is a Buddha. This book recounts Guru Rinpoche's historic visit to Tibet and explains his continuing significance to Buddhists. In doing so, it illustrates how a country whose powerful armies overrun the capital of China and installed a puppet emperor cam to abandon its aggressive military campaigns. This transformation was due to Guru Rinpoche, who tamed and converted Tibet to Buddhism and thereby changed the course of Asian history. This book recounts Guru Rinpoche's historical visit to Tibet and explains his continuing significance to Buddhists. Three very different Tibetan accounts of his story are presented: one Buddhist, one according to the pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, Bon, and one based on Indian and early Tibetan historical documents.

Reviews

"The presence of Guru Rinpoche, a figure so important to Tibetan Buddhists he is called simply 'The Precious Master,' can be felt still in each of these liberating stories translated here. Read side-by-side, they reveal an even wider picture, deftly highlighted by Ngawang Zangpo's introduction of how history and culture interact with the inner spirituality that is beyond time and place."Sarah Harding, author of Creation and Completion

"With a thought-provoking introduction and stimulating cultural, religious, and literary insights, . . . this new work will certainly be enjoyed by everyone interested in the vast spiritual legacy of the 'Second Buddha' in Tibet."Cyrus Stearns

Author Bio

Ngawang Zangpo (Hugh Leslie Thompson) completed two three-year retreats under the direction of the late Kalu Rinpoche. He is presently working on a number of translation projects under the direction of Chadral Rinpoche and Lama Tharchin Rinpoche. He has also contributed to Kalu Rinpoche's translation group's books Myriad Worlds and Buddhist Ethics.