{"product_id":"laughing-lightning-ben-newman-9798185241158","title":"Laughing Lightning: A Life of Milarepa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA murderer becomes a saint. This is the road between.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was born Töpaga - \"Delightful to Hear\" - a boy with a singing voice and a comfortable future, until his father died and his relatives stripped his mother of everything. She sent him to learn black magic, and he was good at it: a hailstorm, a collapsing roof, thirty-five dead. Then he had to live with what he'd done.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLaughing Lightning\u003c\/i\u003e retells the life of Milarepa, Tibet's most beloved yogi-poet, as a novel - the sorcerer who murdered for his mother's revenge, the disciple broken and remade by a merciless teacher, the naked hermit who ate nettles until his skin turned green, and finally the singing sage whose voice gathered hunters, bandits, scholars, and grieving fathers off their ordinary roads and would not let them go. It is a story about whether a person who has done the worst thing can become the best thing, and what it actually costs to find out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrounded in the classical sources - the \u003ci\u003eLife\u003c\/i\u003e of Tsangnyön Heruka and the \u003ci\u003eHundred Thousand Songs\u003c\/i\u003e - but written for readers who have never heard his name, this is Milarepa rendered in the spare, luminous register of Hesse's \u003ci\u003eSiddhartha\u003c\/i\u003e: the miracles left standing as miracles, the terror and the tenderness kept whole, and the songs carried in plain prose that anyone can follow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor readers of \u003ci\u003eSiddhartha\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Snow Leopard\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhen Things Fall Apart\u003c\/i\u003e - a novel about grief, guilt, and the long work of becoming free.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ben Newman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798185241158\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/02\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 236\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.55lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.59d","brand":"Ben Newman","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49097389736191,"sku":"9798185241158","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/laughing-lightning-ben-newman-9798185241158","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}