A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying, book

In this intimate and stirring memoir, Mingyur Rinpoche recounts the painful realizations about his own consciousness that arose from an illness during his spiritual retreat in 2011. The goal of the retreat was to cast off all labels, identities, and expectations in order to make himself unfamiliar even to himself. He becomes a wandering ascetic and nearly dies from food poisoning just days after the start of his retreat. Mingyur Rinpoche recounts his states of mind and his discomfort, reporting the many subtle ways he expected his mind to function because he was considered an authority in the Buddhist community: “I needed to re-experience the continuity of change, to remember that every moment holds a chance to transcend the fixed mind.” Viewing his experience through the doctrine of the bardos, he explores the ways that human beings find themselves always in a state of transition, and the idea that it is the inability to let go of attachments to the self that causes suffering. The freedom

and joy he finds afterward is joyful and inspiring. “After this experience, my mind felt so fresh and my meditation really improved. I could appreciate everything. All resistance was gone, and I felt like I was one with the environment. My mind was clear and wakeful, like a blue sky with the sun shining, transparent and all-pervasive.”

Preorder until May 7th.