At thirty-six years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.

He immediately discovered that a lifetime of Buddhist education and practice had not prepared him to deal with dirty fellow travelers or the screeching of a railway car. He found he was too attached to his identity as a monk to remove his robes right away or to sleep on the Varanasi station floor, and instead paid for a bed in a cheap hostel. But when he ran out of money, he began his life as an itinerant beggar in earnest. Soon he became deathly ill from food poisoning and his journey took a startling turn. His meditation practice had prepared him to face death, and now he had the opportunity to test the strength of his training.

In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with the reader the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living.

In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Spiegel & Grau, Paperback, 288 pp, $18.00

Born in 1975 in Nubri, Nepal, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is an eminent meditation master among the new generation of Tibetan Buddhist teachers trained outside of Tibet. Mingyur Rinpoche teaches throughout the world, with centers on five continents. He is the author of The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, which has been translated into more than twenty languages, as well as Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism and Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom.

CONTENTS: In Love with the World
Prologue		ix
PART ONE ADDING WOOD TO THE FIRE
1	Who Are You?	3
2	Acknowledge the Wave but Stay with the Ocean	11
3	Born with a Silver Spoon	21
4	Impermanence and Death	27
5	Letting Wisdom Arise	35
6	What Will You Do in the Bardo?	48
7	Lessons from Milarepa	53
8	Varanasi Rail Station	61
9	Emptiness, Not Nothingness	73
10	If You See Something, Say Something	83
11	A Visit from Panic, My Old Friend	89
12	A Day at the Ghats	97
13	Of Sleep and Dreams	111
14	Learning to Swim	117
15	Memento Mori	122
PART TWO RETURNING HOME
16	Where the Buddha Died	135
17	What Is Your Happy Dream?	139
18	Coming Through Darkness	148
19	A Chance Encounter	158
20	Naked and Clothed	167
21	No Picking, No Choosing	171
22	Working with Pain	177
23	The Four Rivers of Natural Suffering	183
24	Recalling the Bardos	188
25	Giving Everything Away	195
26	When Death Is Good News	204
27	Awareness Never Dies	211
28	When the Cup Shatters	219
29	In the Bardo of Becoming	229
Epilogue		243
Acknowledgments		255
Glossary		257