I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I have always admired the Dalai Lama and this book gave me much insite into the ways of creating a very calm and different approach to your life. My favorite part of the book started with reviewing all the levels of progress toward being calm. The author quotes nine different levels that really struck well with me. I struggle with much anxiety in my day-to-day life and this book helped me to realize that there are so many ways to overcome my fears, anxieties, self-absorption and others. Thank you for this one. Will pass the book on.

This is a very comprehensive guide to Buddhist meditation practices. Delivered as always in the Dalai Lama's distinctive style - full of humor, joy, and gentle compassion . In this book he takes on the difficult task of explaining the true condition of a human being-impermanent conditional consciousness. This topic is very difficult to explain by putting it into words. The Dalai Lama does a great job and then follows up with many exercises. There are years of wisdom emanating from these words which convinces us that compassion and calm abiding are approachable, it is the way we must be and we must practice and teach others to do so. The HH Dalai Lama walks us through and provides meditative exercises so we can learn to understand the emptiness of inherency and free ourselves through practicing morality, meditation and wisdom. I would also suggest having some practice or enough introspection to continue the delving into understanding that the HH Dalai Lama is well practiced in and so shares his personal findings within these pages. It makes you think on the choices you have made in life, and where you want to go from where you are now.