Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Please note the updated venue for this event. This event will now take place at First Parish Church. 

Havard Book Store welcomes Tibetan Buddhist meditation master YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE—leader of the Tergar Meditation Community and bestselling author of The Joy of Living—for a discussion of his new memoir, In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. He will be joined in conversation by author and guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center NARAYAN HELEN LIEBENSON. This event is co-sponsored by Wisdom Publications.

About In Love with the World

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 readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living.

Praise

“One of the most inspiring books I have ever read.” —Pema Chödrön, author of When Things Fall Apart

“One of the most generous, beautiful, and essential books I’ve ever read—thoroughly engaging, so clear, so honest, so courageous and full of wisdom. In it, deep Buddhist teachings are presented with frankness and great clarity—like a friend talking to a friend.” —George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo

“Vivid, compelling . . . This book is a rarity in spiritual literature: Reading the intimate story of this wise and devoted Buddhist monk directly infuses our own transformational journey with fresh meaning, luminosity, and life.” —Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge