What do you think?
Rate this book
Path to Bliss: A Practical Guide to Stages of Meditation
Simple yet profound in its approach, clear and eloquent in its presentation, this volume outlines meditation practices that cultivate an effective mental outlook on life, greater access to the mind's true potential, and happiness. Assuming no prior experience on the part of beginners, it nonetheless also provides ample material for already advanced practitioners as well.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
9 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Dalai Lama XIV
1,553 books6,195 followersJetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub), the 14th Dalai Lama, is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 20, 2007
The Path to Bliss is a quick and readable introduction to the spirit and aims of Buddhist practice. The Dalai Lama's strength in this book is to provides down to earth anecdotal and philosophical motivation to pursue Buddhist practice. The Dalai Lama offers an indisputable and simple argument. We all want to be happy. Happiness is a worthy goal. Buddhist practice will connect you with the happiness you seek. Simple and appealing, just like the book itself.
In his typically friendly and readable style the Dalai Lama reinterprets a much older work and well know work of the Pali canon. The book describes a particular meditational path that is said to lead to fast enlightenment (only one lifetime required).
Most interesting to me were passages reflecting the Dalai Lama's ongoing dialog with Western science. After all, Buddhism is an unflinching, close study of reality. As science enhances our understanding of that reality, Buddhism must harmonize with it, not seek to stem or overturn it. What a welcome site to witness a spiritual leader trying to learn from science and you could not find a greater contrast with various fundamentalist movements in the US and abroad that seek to jam the Enlightenment genie back into the bottle.
If you read more Buddhist commentary, and this book is likely to peak your curiosity, you will realize that DL's approach is not an insincere recasting of religion to attract more devotees from a post-religious world. To maintain a connection with reality is an often repeated tenet of Buddhism, not an insincere ploy to garner more devotees from a post-religious world.
In his typically friendly and readable style the Dalai Lama reinterprets a much older work and well know work of the Pali canon. The book describes a particular meditational path that is said to lead to fast enlightenment (only one lifetime required).
Most interesting to me were passages reflecting the Dalai Lama's ongoing dialog with Western science. After all, Buddhism is an unflinching, close study of reality. As science enhances our understanding of that reality, Buddhism must harmonize with it, not seek to stem or overturn it. What a welcome site to witness a spiritual leader trying to learn from science and you could not find a greater contrast with various fundamentalist movements in the US and abroad that seek to jam the Enlightenment genie back into the bottle.
If you read more Buddhist commentary, and this book is likely to peak your curiosity, you will realize that DL's approach is not an insincere recasting of religion to attract more devotees from a post-religious world. To maintain a connection with reality is an often repeated tenet of Buddhism, not an insincere ploy to garner more devotees from a post-religious world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review