Glenn H Mullin vividly brings to life the myth and succession of all 14 Dalai Lamas in one volume for the first time. The book contains a chapter on each Dalai Lama (except Dalai Lamas 9-12, who are covered in one chapter). Each chapter opening features an illustration of the Dalai Lama who is the subject of that chapter. Mullin has also included characteristic excerpts from the Dalai Lamas' teachings, poetry, and other writings that illuminate the principles of Tibetan Buddhism expressed in their lives. The 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetans in exile, is well-known, but the 600 year tradition to which he is heir is less familiar. From the birth of the first Dalai Lama in a cowshed in 1391, each subsequent Dalai Lama has been the reincarnation of his predecessor, choosing to take up the burdens of a human life for the benefit of the Tibetan people. For almost six centuries, the Dalai Lamas have served as the Tibetans' spiritual leader and have held secular power for almost half that time. All the Dalai Lamas are revered as incarnations of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, but each has been a unique individual with different abilities and temperaments. Over the ages, various Dalai Lamas have been poets, statesmen, builders, philosophers; most have been disciplined monastics, but one was a lover of women. The potential of some was tragically lost when their lives were cut short, possibly the victims of political intrigue, while others lived long enough to shape entire eras of Tibetan history.
Glenn H Mullin is one of the world's foremost Tibetologists. He has published approximately twenty books on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, including a series on the lives and teachings of the early Dalai Lamas. Mullin is an internationally renowned Buddhist scholar, an acclaimed translator of Tibetan classics, a well-known speaker on the international lecture circuit and a popular teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation. As a youth, Mullin studied engineering at Mt Allison University, Canada, and then travelled to the Himalayas to join the Tibetan Studies Program at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, a small college for Western students that had been established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Mullin remained in Dharamsala for twelve years, where he completed the rigorous training in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and meditation, first at the LTWA and then at the Tsennyi Labtra Monastery. After this he joined the Research and Translation Bureau of the LTWA.
The Dalai Lama is recognised internationally as an advocate of world peace and inter-religious understanding. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
