A concise introduction to Tibetan Buddhism

Powers, another graduate of the University of Virginia Buddhist studies program that has produced a cadre of scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, condenses a longer introductory work. Tibetan Buddhism is both esoteric and difficult, so any text that elucidates it performs intellectual service. This one admirably unpacks the topic of tantra, that distinctive aspect of Tibetan Buddhist teaching. Tantra includes texts, practices and ideas, and Powers sketches with mastery one very complex system. The book logically selects material essential to a survey: history, key concepts, doctrines and distinctions among various schools of thought. Particularly helpful is a survey of Tibetan Buddhist ideas about death and dying, which are distinctive to this form of Buddhism. Certain varieties of meditation are also distinctively Tibetan, and the author provides useful discriminations and context. The history of Tibet focuses on its tangled relationship over centuries with neighboring China. The work has editing flaws, as the reshaping done to shrink a larger work into concise form is ragged in places. Some references remain unexplained, and the book lacks a conclusion, as if an ending were abruptly excised. On the whole, however, this concise book does yeoman work of explanation. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Western interest in the many varieties of Buddhism continues to grow along with Americans' fascination with Tibet's exiled Dalai Lama and his nation's tangled history with China. Powers, a specialist in Indo-Tibetan philosophy and meditation theory (Ctr. for Asian Societies & History, Australian National Univ.; A Concise Encyclopedia of Buddhism), has here condensed his well-received Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (2d ed. Snow Lion. 2007). The process of trimming 591 pages down to some 160 significantly diminishes the treatment of many areas while amputating some topics completely. Nevertheless, Powers's readable abridgment offers the curious general reader a thorough overview of important Buddhist doctrines as well as of Tibetan Buddhism's origins and particularities (e.g., Tantra, the four principle orders). Recommended for most public and academic collections, which will also want to offer Powers's extended version, the Dalai Lama's The World of Tibetan Buddhism: An Overview of Its Philosophy & Practice, and Donald S. Lopez's more academic and historical Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West.--James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of North Carolina at Asheville Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.