RE-ENCHANTMENT; Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West

New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Trade paperback. Light shelfwear. Remainder mark. Very Good. 278 pp. In a single generation, Tibetan Buddhism developed from the faith of a remote mountain people, associated with bizarre, almost medieval, superstitions, to perhaps the most rapidly growing and celebrity-studded religion in the West. Disaffected with other religious traditions yet searching for meaning, huge numbers of Americans have found their way to the wisdom of Tibetan lamas in exile. Earthy, humorous, commonsensical, and eccentric, these flamboyant teachers - larger-than-life characters like Lama Yeshe and Chogyma Trungpa - proved to be charismatic and gifted ambassadors for their ancient religion. So did two Western women, born in Brooklyn and London's East End, whose homegrown religious intuitions turned out to be identical with the most sophisticated Tibetan teachings, revealing them to be reincarnated lamas. With great flair for both the sublime and the human, Jeffrey Paine narrates in page-turning, richly informative fashion how Tibetan Buddhism-rarefied and sensual, mystical and commonsensical-became the ideal religion for a "post-religious" age.