The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama

Over three years, journalist Thomas Laird conducted more than sixty hours of one-on-one interviews with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These candid conversations covered Tibet's history, science, reincarnation, and Buddhism, which Laird presents in this work outlining thousands of years of Tibetan civilization, myth, and spirituality. The book traces Tibet's story from the Bodhisattva Chenrizi, whose spirit many Tibetans believe resides within the Dalai Lama, through the origins of Buddhism and the era of Great Tibetan Emperors whose reign extended from southwestern China to Northern India. His Holiness discusses Tibet's greatest yogis and meditation masters, the founding of the Dalai Lama institution, Tibet's relations with the Mongols, the Golden Age under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, the Manchu period, early twentieth-century independence, and his personal meetings with Mao before fleeing into exile in 1959.