Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother's Story (Compass Books)
by Diki Tsering
List Price:
Our Price: $4.85
You Save: $7.15 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Diki TseringContributor: Khedroob Thondup
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-05-01
ISBN: 0140196269
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother's Story (Compass Books)
Book Review: Long Ago and Far Away
Summary: 4 Stars
This book relates some of the details of the life of Diki Tsering, the mother of the Dalai Lama. It begins with her childhood in early Twentieth Century Tibet, where she was born into a peasant family. She tells stories of her life as a child, explaining the special relationship she had with her grandparents, and describing the festivals in great detail. She describes her wedding ceremony as a 17-year-old bride, and her new life as stranger and household worker in her husband's family home. As a peasant, Diki Tsering was not rich, but she also was not from the bottom rungs of society, since her family always had a few servants or paid laborers working for them. When one of her children, Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, her life changed dramatically. The family was moved to Lhasa, were they became acquainted with aristocratic society and were given large land holdings and servants. As the mother of the Dalai Lama, she was then able to live the life of an aristocrat and travel widely. However, she was also subject to the dangers of Tibetan and international politics, which eventually led to her flight from Tibet in 1958.
The beginning of the book is quite fascinating, with its descriptions of customs and peasant practices in rural Tibet. Her later descriptions of life in Lhasa and travels are not quite as detailed or engaging, but they do provide interesting documentation of Tibetan history at a crucial point in time.
Summary of Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother's Story (Compass Books)
Born to humble but prosperous peasants in 1901, the Year of the Ox, Diki Tsering grew up a simple girl with a simple life and the ordinary ambition to be a good wife and mother. When faith and fate led her son Lhamo Dhondup to be recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, her world altered completely.
In Dalai Lama, My Son she recounts her own amazing story from her early life with her "tended family and siblings to the customs and rituals of old Tibet and her arranged marriage at age sixteen. She vividly recalls the births of her children and their Buddhist upbringing; His Holiness, unfolding personality; the visitors who came to her town to seek the new Dalai Lama; the family's arduous move to Lhasa; and the years there until the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the family's escape and eventual exile.
Rich in historic and cultural details, this moving glimpse into the origins of the Dalai Lama personalizes the history of the Tibetan people, the magic of their culture, the role of their women. and their ancient ideals of compassion, faith, and equanimity.
The Dalai Lama's mother was illiterate but was a natural storyteller. When her granddaughter asked her to talk about her life, the stories began to roll out. She told of her wedding at the age of 16, her state of virtual servitude as a married woman, murderous ghosts, and her two dead sons left for the birds. Then, after a three-year drought and other strange events preceding the birth of her fifth child, the lamas came from Lhasa, and her Cinderella future was cinched. With her son the Dalai Lama ensconced in his palace, this nondescript peasant woman whose 16 children yielded three incarnate lamas, strolled her garden estate and hobnobbed with the aristocracy. And yet the intrigue, the perils of domestic and international politics, would soon take her husband's life, drive her remaining children into exile, and have her yearning for the quiet drudgery of her former life. Diki Tsering speaks with the unadorned simplicity of an ordinary country girl about a life that was anything but ordinary. --Brian Bruya
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Best Narrative Non-Fiction Reads
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoirby Bill Bryson
Broadway; Published: 2007-09-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Standing on Holy Ground: A Triumph over Hate Crime in the Deep Southby Sandra E. Johnson
Amazon Remainders Account; Published: 2002-05-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Death at the Priory: Love, Sex, and Murder in Victorian Englandby James Ruddick
Published: 2002-11-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.30
Colors of the Mountainby Da Chen
Anchor; Published: 2001-01-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.25
Price in other shops:
Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother's Story (Compass Books)by Diki Tsering
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.97
Price in other shops:
The Climbby Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1999-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farmby Lauren St John
Scribner; Published: 2007-04-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Lessby Terry Ryan
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005-08-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.02
Price in other shops:
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed Americaby Erik Larson
Vintage; Published: 2004-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.38
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
How to See Yourself As You Really Areby His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Atria; Published: 2007-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.03
Price in other shops:
Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the Worldby Robert Thurman
Atria Books/Beyond Words; Published: 2008-06-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.68
Price in other shops:
A Simple Path: Basic Buddhist Teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lamaby His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thorsons; Published: 2003-01-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.81
Price in other shops:
The Meaning of Lifeby The Dalai Lama, Jeffrey Hopkins, Tenzin Gyatso
Wisdom Publications; Published: 2000-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.01
Price in other shops:
Live in a Better Way: Reflections on Truth, Love, and Happinessby Dalai Lama
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-04-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.75
Price in other shops:
Lighting the Wayby Dalai Lama
Snow Lion Publications; Published: 2005-04-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops:
Seven Years in Tibetby Heinrich Harrer
Tarcher; Published: 1997-08-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.86
Price in other shops:
KundunYESHI,TENZIN; Release date: 1998-10-14; DVD
Best price: $4.77
Price in other shops:
Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of The Dalai Lamaby Lama Dalai
HarperOne; Published: 1991-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.01
Price in other shops:
My Land and My People: The Original Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibetby The Dalai Lama
Warner Books; Published: 1997-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.71
Price in other shops: