Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment

Lama Surya Das, the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition, presents the first comprehensive book of Western Buddhism for the modern-day spiritual seeker.Buddhism offers a profound yet practical path to enlightenment. In this loving and generous book, the American-born and Tibetan-trained Lama Surya Das offers at once a definitive and nonsectarian guide to the wisdom found in ancient Tibetan teachings and a tried and true path of spiritual transformation.The radical and compelling message of Buddhism tells us that each of us has the wisdom, awareness, love, and power of the Buddha within; yet most of us are too often like sleeping Buddhas. Surya Das shows how we can awaken to who we really are and thus walk the liberating, peaceful path of mindful and compassionate living. With lively language, meditations, and spiritual practices, this unique book provides a bridge between East and West, past, present, and future. "Awakening the Buddha Within" offers a complete yet accessible understanding of the unique Buddhist teachings embodied in the traditional Noble Eight-Fold Path and its Three Enlightenment Trainings, common to all schools of Buddhism: * Wisdom Training: Developing clear vision, insight, and inner understanding--seeing reality and ourselves as we really are.* Ethics Training: Cultivating virtue, self-discipline, integrity, and compassion in what we say and do.* Meditation Training: Practicing mindfulness, concentration, and awareness of the present moment.This fresh and original work illuminates such key principles as karma (what we do does matter), rebirth (every moment is an opportunity to start afresh), letting go(simplifying our lives by clarifying our hearts and minds), as well as conscious living and dying, and Dzogchen, the ultimate, mystical teaching of Tibet.In this wonderful marriage of the timeless and the timely, Surya Das has written an invaluable, authoritative text for the novice and the experienced student of Buddhism alike. "Awakening the Buddha Within" reveals how sacred wisdom, contemplative practice, and altruism can be integrated into our outer and inner lives--in our relationships, in the workplace, and at home.Here is a guidebook to enlightenment--a sourcebook of the sacred for anyone who wants to lead a more serene and beautiful life.For almost thirty years, Lama Surya Das has studied and lived with the great spiritual masters of Asia. He has twice completed the traditional three-year Vajrayana meditation retreat. A leading spokesperson for the emerging Western Buddhism, he is a Dzogchen lineage holder and the founder of the Dzogchen Foundation. A poet, translator, and full-time spiritual teacher, Surya Das lectures and leads meditation retreats and workshops worldwide, brings Tibetan lamas to the West to teach, and regularly organizes the annual Western Buddhist Teachers Conference with the Dalai Lama in Dharmasala, India and is active in interfaith dialogue. He is the author of "The Snow Lion's Mane: Wisdom Tales from Tibet" and "Natural Great Perfection" (with Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche). Surya Das lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts.