This book makes me think enlightenment is possible and necessary.

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. It is also a great adventure story, really, about the most important adventure any of us can ever embark upon; the story of one noble soul attempting to come to an understanding of the workings of his own mind and thereby live in a truly sane and loving way. This book has the potential to change the reader’s life forever.

I loved this book. It is moving and inspiring, profound and utterly human. It will certainly be a classic. Mingyur’s life-changing adventure carries us with him and teaches us how to find the unshakable heart amidst it all.

One of the most inspiring books of our times. An extraordinary testimony and a profound teaching that keeps you reading with wonderment, page after page. A treasury of insights to go ever deeper in your spiritual practice and in giving meaning to your life.

With this book, we enter into the interior life of a remarkable young Buddhist teacher. After setting off by himself on a wandering retreat, he immediately encounters fear, aversion, sickness, and near death. Yet the same emotional and physical difficulties that would throw the average person for a loop become opportunities for Mingyur Rinpoche to work with his mind, and to deepen his commitment to transforming adversity into awakening. His willingness to describe this process in such intimate detail has been an immense help to my own path, and makes this one of the most inspiring books I have ever read.

Part thriller, part deeply personal autobiography, and part Buddhist teachings on how to live a meaningful life, this is an extraordinary book. It is a cliffhanger that recounts the journey of a modern wandering yogi who courageously gave up everything to challenge his mind and heart and live in the most difficult of circumstances. A gripping narrative of how the process of dying, letting go of our fixed selves and constraining habits, can liberate the human spirit and promote flourishing, this book has something profoundly important to teach each of us.

In this vivid, compelling account, Mingyur Rinpoche reveals his own struggle and awakening as he faces the loss of worldly identity and the threat of dying itself. 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.

Through the unfolding of the wisdom of his personal story, Mingyur Rinpoche shows us the true value of investigating and freeing our minds. A courageous trailblazer, he illuminates a clear path, making it more accessible for others. This book will change many lives.

This artfully told spiritual adventure casts a spell—you can’t put it down, and you don’t want it to end. I recommend it without reservation: I bet you’ll love it, too.

In his book, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche gifts us with more than just a mesmerizing read. As Rinpoche narrates his spiritual journey, he lays bare his early hopes and aspirations, his doubts, indignities, bodily and emotional suffering, and his vulnerabilities. He offers these with great skill, clarity, and love to encourage and inspire us to travel our own spiritual journeys.

On the path to enlightenment, Mingyur Rinpoche had to escape from the sanctity of a Buddhist monastery, where he lived a privileged cossetted life, to find himself in the down-and-out railway stations, malodorous toilets, and flophouses of India. His misadventures along the way make for a rollicking travelogue. And yet this slim book also moved me, and left me with a better appreciation of Tibetan Buddhism than so many weightier tomes that I’ve struggled to understand.