Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness [Hardcover]

Robert Thurman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1998

While the Western world was launching the scientific revolution that would ultimately produce an industrialized society, parts of India, Tibet and China launched a revolution of inner science that began a social revolution that we now have an opportunity to complete. Based on his in-depth knowledge of Tibet and a 30-year relationship with the Dalai Lama, Robert Thurman gives us a handbook for enlightening ourselves and the world .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman (yes, he is the father of Uma) was named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in 1997. Here's why: Thurman has a knack for helping laymen understand the teachings and history of Buddhism while also explaining why it has taken root in the West. Thurman was the first Westerner to be ordained as a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition after studying under the Dalai Lama in 1964. In this highly polished memoir he tells the story of his pupilage under His Holiness, which was a frolic in Sunday school compared to the task of integrating Buddhism into cold war America. This is an optimistic and highly satisfying discussion of how Buddhism has shaped the life of one fascinating scholar as well as the course of Western spirituality. --Gail Hudson

From Library Journal

The first American Tibetan Buddhist monk, Thurman currently teaches at Columbia and was chosen by Time as one of the 25 most influential people of 1997. What's more, actress Uma Thurman is his daughter. Here, he argues that we can now complete the inner revolution begun in the East when the West was industrializing.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (April 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573220906
• ISBN-13: 978-1573220903
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you believe we are all in this together..., January 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Inner Revolution (Paperback)

Reviews of this book are divided by whether the reader agrees with Thurman's politics. That's not a book review. If you agree that the wealth and happiness of every person depends upon the whole of human history and existence, and that we are all equally responsible for and connected to each other and the planet, then you will agree with the author. If you believe it's everyone for himself (I choose my pronoun deliberately) based on rugged individual talent existing all by itself and making gains at the expense of who and whatever is in the way, then you probably won't. In either case, this book is a thoughtful and humorous presentation of Buddhist philosophy as it may be applied to everyday western life, and the section on how to effect change is worth reading. In fact, it's worth reading this book just to be inspired to visualize the kind of world we could create, if we didn't each think "this whole party is for us."

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is meant to be a basic and popular book....., September 27, 2000

By 

J. Michael Showalter (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness (Hardcover)

Showing my hand, first, I studied religion under Thurman as an undergraduate at Columbia. Nevertheless, both sets of reviews (they seem on here to be divsible into two camps) have grains of truth to them; some, to me, seem a little too hero-worshipping (either of the man or of the Dharma) and others a little bit too harsh (crushing Thurman for the inclusion of a political agenda in this work)....

First, this was meant to be a popular, non-academic book and not a treatise entirely on the history of Tibet or an analysis of its culture. Thurman's 'Central Philosophy of Tibet' is near as dry and distant as books come; he had a reputation as a translator before he had one as a popularizer. Which no doubt he is-- his hand is laid bare in the fact that he's chosen to spend his life educating people in the West of Dharma, of trying to protect and help the Tibetan people (whom he thinks were special, unique, and good....), and achieve some kind of an enlightened polity....

He IS trying to change the world with this book. Necessarily, when you introduce a child to America, you don't always tell ALL of the truth (which is a tough thing to do anyway); when you teach a child about Christianity, you tell of the Gospels and NOT of Revelations, the anti-Semitism of Luther, or the excesses of many of the Popes-- and no one says that these are bad things. Thurman is introducing a culture and an idea-- him having been a monk it's going to be a bit of a polemic (which if you ever read a lot about Tibet most of it is.... strangely only excluding much of what the Dalai Lama has written..... and 'The Dragon in the Land of Snows'-- a history of Tibet...) It's preachy and it is a polemic.....

Perhaps the book would have been left better off without the political agenda added at the end. You could say that it helps people to think about WHAT would be good; how could they change their world toward some kind of Shambala BUT it provides a huge way for people to slam this text.

Buy this if you want (albeit a bit polemical) an introduction into Buddhism and what went on in Tibet-- it's a fun, easy read. It's worth your time. Then, though, read other books.... to find out more.... cause this one in places IS NOT a strict, hard, grey work of 'Truth'....

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inner Revolution as a View beyond Ego, July 14, 2001

By 

Rodolfo Justine (Panama, Panama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness (Hardcover)

I believe all critic is but a glimpse on how one grasps the world, and in this, I mean we perceive a split image and tainted with our own personal baggage. Some fine things have been said about the author, about politics and about the author's personality, yet very little has been said about the work: the book.

This is perhaps one of the finest books to shed light in the dilema of the individual in a complex social matrix and its struggles to break free and achieve some sort of personal mission or calling. The book makes an excellent bridge, analyzing planetary history, describing moments in which the collective need to create new ways to experience and understand, catapulted the planet into a new frequency of understanding; this described in terms of an Axial period in History. Thurman's ability to describe and phrase the very nature of Ego and what we all have collectively come to call "personality" is fascinating. The importance of this book is in its capacity to present a diagnosis of our era and the very things that have held us back: meaning that human beings have a mission or pursuit, that of being happy, of being a better human being and with this intention he is also saying that we, as a society (and very much so the society in power) have created a fractured and very little avenue for human kind to experience itself in a dimension beyond suffering.

I can not understand why there is criticism on the book being political, since we all respond to structures of rule and power, if the possibility of all beings achieving happiness is not on our politicians agenda, then who are the serving? Whose interest is it?

Inner Revolution is an invitation to remind us of our Human right to achieve happiness for oneself, others and the planet at large. It is a door to glimpse beyond that which we have all in a way forgotten: the freedom to pursue our true nature.