This is an autobiographic narration by a successful English businessman, who after the death of his brother started “looking for himself”, got interested in Buddhism and eventually enrolled as a Buddhist monk in Thailand.

The book is written well and gives a very nice account of Buddhism - both its spiritual aspects and more modern aspects, Buddhist monks, monasteries in general, and in Thailand in particular, and a broad overview of life in Thailand - both rural and in big cities. It’s a light and quick read, frequently funny and overall quite entertaining and enlightening. We bought it in Thailand and I read it while being there, which was very interesting - since it got me to pay attention to things I didn’t notice before.

Curiously, it appears that prior to reading this book I obviously didn’t understand what Buddhism is. I probably confused it with Hinduism and had only a very vague impression of the ideas behind it. Now I understand much more about Buddhism, and to tell you the truth, of all religions, this one appeals to my atheistic self the most.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Book reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.