Tulku Sherdor

The first half of this book is autobiographical, mostly following Tulku Sherdor's path in the Dharma from college through maybe twenty five years to the point of being enthroned as a tulku. Along the way he gets to spend a lot of time with some superlative teachers, e.g. Tulku Urgyen. This half of the book does a nice job of interleaving inner and outer experience in a very accessible way.

The second half of the book is a bit of an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. It does a very nice job of hitting the essential points without getting lost in lots of technical details.

Anyone could read this book, enjoy it, and gain a lot from it. The autobiographical part is not too peculiar - quite a few of the pioneer students could tell similar stores - but few enough have, that this book works nicely as an good example. The instructional part would be a great introduction to Buddhism for beginners, or fresh inspiration and refocus on the essential, for those of us who sometimes get a little lost along the way!

The writing is not particularly beautiful or poetic. Tulku Sherdor spent a decade as a lawyer... while the book is not as dry as a legal contract, it is a bit on the dry side. But it never gets tangled, and keeps enough narrative momentum to hold interest. Probably that legal background helps keep the book well organized. Now that I think about it, I read another book in this genre, a kind of autobiography plus instruction by a Western Dharma pioneer, and that other book got so scrambled that nothing really stuck in my head. Yeah, now that I remember how others have dropped the ball, it just makes me more appreciative for the gift that Tulku Sherdor has given us here!… (meer)