Mick Brown: The Dance Of 17 Lives

Reviewed by JADE REIDY

The West has had a love affair with Tibet for 45 years, stretching back to the Dalai Lama's dramatic escape to India in 1959. Romanticised rumours of the magical powers of reincarnated tulkus, or living Buddhas, have grown up alongside teachings embraced by seekers of spiritual truth.

With this book, the honeymoon is categorically over.

The biography is described in the subtitle as "the incredible true story of Tibet's 17th Karmapa", who escaped to Dharamsala in India in the mid-1990s; this suggests that here is another would-be best-seller in the epic-survival-in-the-face-of-oppression genre. Not so.

Brown, a veteran of four previous books, including Richard Branson's biography, uses his journalistic discrimination to broaden the religious landscape of both ancient and modern Tibetan and give a reality check to our infatuation with the mystical and colourful gompas, stupas, rinpoches — and reincarnation.

Tibetan lamas provided Westerners with an idealised image of perfect humility and compassion; the West, in return, provided the atmosphere of aspiration, unquestioning belief and financial support the lamas (in exile) needed.

Like any established state religion, Tibet's Buddhism flourished through power and patronage. The concept of reincarnation served not only to retain the compassionate wisdom of realised lamas, given their relatively short life spans in a harsh climate, but also to legitimise and maintain an elite hierarchy of unquestioned, and often wealthy, rulers.

The four main Tibetan sects did not always co-exist in perfect Buddhist peace. Those ancient feuds still run through Tibetan Buddhism like a fault-line, feeding political intrigues that have spilled over into post-exile times, accompanied by behaviour on the part of a few senior lamas that is anything but truthful or enlightened.

Brown wanted to write a book for people like himself, who knew little of the teachings but enough to be fascinated by them. His research is scrupulous, his writing non-judgmental and informative. The result is one of the most accessible explanations of Tibetan Buddhist history on overcrowded bookshelves, as well as a highly readable political thriller.

* Bloomsbury, $35