Tibet: Reflections from the Wheel of Life [Hardcover]

V. Carroll Dunham (Author), Ian Baker (Author), Thomas L. Kelly (Photographer), Dalai Lama (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2001

This work provides an intimate portrait of Tibet and its people as they make their pilgrimage through the wheel of life. The book offers lively and engaging, intimate and bawdy, humorous, tragic, revealing and inspiring stories of the Tibetans and reveals their extraordinary perception of their everyday lives. According to Tibetan belief, existence is an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This book traces that journey from birth and childhood to adolescence, marriage, midlife, old age and death. We meet a woman who is married to four brothers and pregnant. She dreams of turquoise - a sure sign that the child in her belly will be a boy. Ten-year-old Tulku Ralo yawns as he sits on a grand throne blessing the reverent throng who flock to him; it is not easy being a god-child. The famous sleeping lama, Mindroling Rinpoche, who sleeps all day not because he is tired but because he is an advanced practitioner of dream yoga, changes the world by transforming his inner world. The pilgrimage of a family to Lhasa takes several years, for they cover the entire distance by prostrating the length of their bodies across the earth, surrendering to the primordial ground from which all Buddhas have arisen. All this is set against Tibet's beautiful mountain landscapes, as well as the ongoing struggle of the Tibetans to win independance from China.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Laced with earthy folk mythology and a good dose of politics, this stunningly beautiful volume will be of interest to Tibet scholars and armchair travelers alike. The extensive text and many color photographs are organized around life's phases (from conception to death) as understood in Tibetan culture. Although the writing is at times fanciful, it makes rewarding reading and effectively portrays the Tibetan ethos. The authors are committed travelers and scholars of the area, and their personal allegiances in relation to the Chinese occupation are clear. In this presentation, the Tibetans and their land are long on probity and beauty--from the photographs, one would never guess how bleak most of the plateau's landscape is or how unattractive Lhasa, the capital, has become--while the Chinese are plunderers. If the Chinese indeed finish destroying Tibetan culture, this book will stand as an important monument to what was lost.
- James D. Seymour, Columbia Univ.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This stunningly beautiful volume will be of interest to Tibet scholars and armchair travelers alike....If the Chinese indeed finish destroying Tibetan culture, this book will stand as an important monument to what was lost." -Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 203 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press; 1st edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558592180
• ISBN-13: 978-1558592186
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Visually striking, decent writing, March 30, 2007

By 

The Brown Bear "Man" (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tibet: Reflections from the Wheel of Life (Hardcover)

More than a coffee table book, to be sure. The images are stunning and emphasize the mythic narrative that gently reveals Tibetan culture in a sensitive and compelling way. Unfortunately, there is not quite enough info on the Chinese point of view and China's 3000 year old history of interference with and claims (generally bogus at best but still rather important) on Tibet which no doubt played no small role in the PRC's occupation and colonization of Tibet. While this book does eloquently provide the Tibetan in exile perspective, it's useful to understand what China's claims over Tibet entail and the history behind it, if for nothing else, to simply be more effective in refuting some of the more egregious and specious claims made by the PRC. The book does at least mention the interference by the UK and USA, specifically Nixon's pulling funding and support from the Tibetan guerillas resisting the PRC invasions and occupation of the 1950's, but it doesn't go far enough to name the names of the culprits in the US corporate juggernaut responsible for abandoning the entire nation and culture of Tibet in favor of the racist Chinese imperial/colonial occupation nor the US's help to China in getting maps redrawn which effectively eliminate Tibet from younger generations' minds. That's criminal and should have been in this book. The book also falls prey, unfortunately, to the Shangri-La myth common among American Tibet supporters; that Tibet was blissful and egalitarian prior to Chinese invasion. It decidedly was not, although tremendous compassion is due to the 14th Dalai Lama for recognizing their shortcomings and taking steps even in exile to overcome this. And, in no way should that justify China's actions by any stretch. If you read the book with the view that this is one narrative, one presentation, it's quite a good one, and at least a fully fleshed out version. It begs for a companion book that allows the grit and grime of everday Tibetan working class reality and the real shocks to Tibet culture the Chinese "modernization" and "liberation" propaganda nonsense represent. If the world gets to know the truth through this book and others like it, Tibet may yet have a chance. The book is gorgeous and really well written, the latter being something most "coffee table" books lack.