In the tradition of The Snow Leopard, Circling the Sacred Mountain is a remarkable account of spiritual adventure through the magical and forbidding landscape of remote western Tibet. A promise of spiritual transformation inspired Robert Thurman - renowned Buddhist scholar, teacher, and close friend of the Dalai Lama - to take a group of trekkers to Mount Kailash, the holiest of Himalayan mountains, and teach them an accelerated path of Tibetan Buddhism. Among the group was a former student and longtime friend, Tad Wise, who struggles with Thurman's teachings as much as with the rigors of high altitude. Together, they take us through an ominous border crossing to sites few Westerners have seen: sacred graveyards, majestic monasteries, and the meditation caves of ancient masters. Chronicling and metaphysical, Circling the Sacred Mountain is an exciting account of a challenging journey toward enlightenment.

Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas, Robert Thurman and Tad Wise, Bantam Books, Paperback, 352 pages, $17.00

Robert A. F. Thurman is Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York City, where he has taught since 1988. He holds the first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in America. He received Upasika ordination in 1964 and Vajracharya ordination in 1971, both from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Among the foremost Buddhologists and interpreters of Tibet and its Buddhist civilization; he is also an ordained Buddhist layman. He is a cofounder of Tibet House in New York City, a cultural nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the endangered civilization of Tibet. Robert Thurman is the author of Essential Tibetan Buddhism (1996); Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness (1998), Circling the Sacred Mountain (1999), Why the Dalai Lama Matters (2008), and many other original books and translations of sacred Tibetan texts.

	Contents: Circling the Sacred Mountain - A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas
	PART ONE - Going tothe Mountain
	Chapter One: Off the Deep End	3
	Chapter Two: Kathmandu	21
	Chapter Three: The Tibetan Reader	37
	Chapter Four: Acclimatizing	51
	Chapter Five: Milarepa's Cave	67
	Chapter Six: On the Road	83
	Chapter Seven: Reaching the Mountain	103
	PART TWO - Circling the Mountain
	Chapter Eight: The Southern Gate of the Mandala Palace	123
	Chapter Nine: The Great Freedom Pole	137
	Chapter Ten: The Mansion of Hayagriva	159
	Chapter Eleven: The Female Yak Horn Cave	181
	Chapter Twelve: The Cool Grove Charnel Ground	203
	Chapter Thirteen: Tara Pass	217
	Chapter Fourteen: The Dakini Secret Path	231
	Chapter Fifteen: Mila's Miracle Cave	245
	PART THREE - Returning from the Mountain
	Chapter Sixteen: The Holy Lake	267
	Chapter Seventeen: The Border Bribe	293
	Chapter Eighteen: Up and Over the Pass	309
	Chapter Nineteen: The Eclipse	323
	Chapter Twenty: Kathmandu	343