In the Shadow of the Buddha: One Man’s Journey of Discovery in Tibet

"Part spy thriller, part Dharma travelogue, part spiritual autobiography . . . 100 percent page-turner."
-Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

For nearly a decade, Matteo Pistono evaded Chinese security and smuggled out photos of prisons, secret documents, and firsthand interviews of torture victims and other atrocities committed by the Chinese government. Yet Pistono had not initially gone to Tibet to fight for human rights-but as a Buddhist pilgrim.

After Pistono became the student of a venerated meditation master in Tibet, he began couriering messages to him from the Dalai Lama in India. This began an extraordinary adventure. In the Shadow of the Buddha is both a vivid account of how Tibet's rich spiritual past is slipping away under repression, and the story of one man who merged political activism with Buddhist mysticism in pursuit of freedom and peace.

Matteo Pistono is a writer, practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of In the Shadow of the Buddha: Secret Journeys, Sacred Histories, and Spiritual Discovery in Tibet. Pistono’s images and writings about Tibetan and Himalayan cultural, political, and spiritual landscapes have appeared in BBC’s In-Pictures, Men’s Journal, Kyoto Journal, and HIMAL South Asia. Pistono was born and raised in Wyoming where he completed his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and in 1997 he obtained his Masters of Arts degree in Indian Philosophy from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. After working with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. on Tibetan cultural programs, Pistono lived and traveled throughout the Himalayas for a decade, bringing to the West graphic accounts and photos of China’s human rights abuses in Tibet. He is the founder of Nekorpa, a foundation working to protect sacred pilgrimage sites around the world, and he sits on the Executive Council of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, Rigpa Fellowship, and the Conservancy for Tibetan Art and Culture. Pistono and his wife, Monica, divide their time between Colorado, Washington D.C., and Asia.