Approaching the Buddhist Path

The first volume in an eight-volume collection of the Dalai Lama’s definitive teachings on the Buddhist path.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been publically teaching Buddhism for nearly seventy years. This series collects his presentations of every step of the path to enlightenment, compiled and coauthored by one of his chief Western disciples, the American nun Thubten Chodron.

Traditional presentations of the path in Tibetan Buddhism assume the audience already has faith in the Buddha and believes in rebirth and karma, but the Dalai Lama realized early that a different approach was needed for his Western students. Starting from the universal human wish for happiness and the dynamic nature of the mind, His Holiness here provides a framework for the modern reader to make sense of this rich tradition. Subsquent volumes will delve more deeply into particular Buddhist subjects, but this first volume provides a wealth of reflections on Buddhist history and fundamentals, contemporary issues, and the Dalai Lama’s own personal experiences.