Dit boek is een kennismaking met de Dalai Lama zelf, in zijn eigen woorden. Hij vertelet over zijn leven en werken, over zijn teleurstellingen en zijn hoop. Vervolgens bespreekt hij in kort bestek, en zeer begrijpelijk, wat de kern van zijn levensbeschouwing is. Als religieuze leider van Tibet, tevens hoofd van de Tibetaanse regering in ballingschap, is de Dalai Lama wereldwijd geliefd en gerespecteerd. Hij ontving in 1989 de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede. De vele schitterende foto's uit Tibet en India, van natuur, cultuur en religie, maken van dit boek de mooist denkbare ontmoeting met de wereld van de Dalai Lama.
Author
Jetsun 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.
