The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling
Published on 1. May 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-57062-622-7 (ISBN)
Description
King Gesar, renowned throughout Tibet and Central Asia, represents the ideal warrior-the principle of all-victorious confidence. As the central force of sanity, he conquers all his enemies, the evil forces of the four directions, who turn people's minds away from the true teachings of Buddhism. These enemies graphically represent the different manifestations of cowardly mind.
As Chögyam Trungpa explains in the Foreword:
"When we talk here about conquering our enemy, it is important to understand that we are not talking about aggression. The genuine warrior does not become resentful or arrogant . . . It is absolutely necessary for the warrior to subjugate his own ambition to conquer at the same time that he is subjugating his other more obvious enemies. Thus the idea of warriorship altogether is that by facing all our enemies fearlessly, with gentleness and intelligence, we can develop ourselves thereby attaining self-realization."
The legends of Gesar usually take weeks for a bard to recount. Filled with magic, adventure, and the triumphs of this great warrior-king, the stories will delight all-young and old alike.
As Chögyam Trungpa explains in the Foreword:
"When we talk here about conquering our enemy, it is important to understand that we are not talking about aggression. The genuine warrior does not become resentful or arrogant . . . It is absolutely necessary for the warrior to subjugate his own ambition to conquer at the same time that he is subjugating his other more obvious enemies. Thus the idea of warriorship altogether is that by facing all our enemies fearlessly, with gentleness and intelligence, we can develop ourselves thereby attaining self-realization."
The legends of Gesar usually take weeks for a bard to recount. Filled with magic, adventure, and the triumphs of this great warrior-king, the stories will delight all-young and old alike.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Boston
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
388 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57062-622-7 (9781570626227)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Alexandra David-Neel
The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling
E-Book
05/2001
Shambhala
€23.49
Available for download
Persons
Indomitable traveller, opera singer and anchorite, a onetime director of the Tunis Casino and the first Western woman to be granted an audience with the Dalai Lama-few women have shaped more fascinating lives for themselves than Alexandra David-Neel. She was born in Paris in 1868, the only child of an unhappy marriage, and constantly ran away from home. After studying eastern religions in Paris, she went to India and Ceylon, and thereafter toured the Far and Middle East and North Africa as an opera singer. In 1904 she married Philippe Francois Neel in Tunis: they separated almost immediately, but he financed many of her later travels and they wrote regularly to each other till his death in 1941.In 1911, she left Paris for dNorthern India, where she subsequently graduated as a Lama, and spent a winter with her boy companion, Yongden, a Sikkimese lama, in a cave, dressed only in a cotton garment and studying Buddhist teaching. Later she spent three years in a Peking monastery. In 1923, having travelled with Yongden from Calcutta through Burma, Japan, Korea to Peking, covering nearly 5000 miles by mule, yak and horse across China into northeastern Tibet, up into Mongolia and the Gobi, she arrived at the Mekong River. From here they set out, disguised as Tibetan pilgrims, for Lhasa. It is at this point that Alexandra David-Neel, in the liveliest of her many books, takes up her story, written in English and first published in 1927. It is one of the most remarkable of all travellers' tales.In 1925, after fourteen years in Asia she returned to France, a celebrity. She was awarded many honours, including the Grande Médaille (d'Or of La Société de Géographic, In 1936, with Yongden at her side, she went for the last time to Asia, staying eight years. A legend in her own time, she died just before her 101st birthday, in 1969.