In Love with the World

This author is a great Buddhist teacher and meditator who also suffers from mental health challenges. I thought he walked the line among all these topics very well.

As a life long seeker, I aim for equanimity where I’m fully immersed in life but not triggered by it so I totally related to this heart opening autobiography.

Written by a revered monk, a Tibetan Buddhist, who secretly left the monastery he presided over and embarked on an arduous, 4-year long period where he chose to be a mendicant and beggar. His noble goal was to tap into his essence absent of all the pomp, prestige, and privilege his original station afforded.

As he focuses on the minutia of his travels through India he intimately reveals his inner, spiritual… show more.

This is an extraordinary journey book of a yogi who was identified at a very young age as a Tulku - reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Mingyur Rinpoche was taken at a very young age to a monastery to receive a Buddhist education. Since his childhood, he was fascinated by the wandering yogis of his tradition (like Naropa and Milarepa). At the age of 34, when he was a respected authority of Tibetan Buddhism and a renowned master who was teaching around the world, he decided to become a wandering yogi and embark on a solitary… show more.

Those of us who were students of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche received an email one day a number of years ago. Rinpoche had left the comfort of his monastery in the middle of the night with a begging bowl, his robe, and some money. My jaw dropped. This treasured teacher was following in the footsteps of monks searching for freedom by letting go of the safety and comfort of his titles, role as the esteemed abbot of three monasteries…to wandering with only a begging bowl. Instead of using his writing or videos to show us how good he is at meditation,… show more.

Reared from sheltered babyhood as a fully enlightened being, the abbot decided at the age of 36 to leave the monastery and wander begging like the Buddha for food. I was amazed. He openly recounts the emotions of grappling for the first time with physical needs – including his descent into dying, his recovery, and his joy of this difficult world.