The Meaning of Life: Buddha's Three Vehicles to Enlightenment (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781066832514)

What is the meaning of life?

It is the question that has stirred in the human heart across every culture, every era, and every walk of life. Twenty-five hundred years ago, a man named Siddhartha Gautama sat beneath a tree in northeastern India and meditated until he had found the answer.

This book is that answer - presented through the framework of the Buddha's Three Vehicles: the Theravada path of personal liberation, the Mahayana path of compassion and wisdom, and the Vajrayana's direct introduction to the nature of mind through Mahamudra, Dzogchen, and Madhyamaka.

Together, these three vehicles constitute a complete science of mind and reality - one that begins with the honest recognition that life as we ordinarily live it is pervaded by suffering, and ends with the radical discovery that the freedom we have been seeking was present within us all along: the luminous, boundless awareness that is the nature of mind itself, experienced as bliss, void, and unconditional love.

Written for everyone - from those encountering the Buddha's teachings for the first time to long-term practitioners - this book is not a philosophy to be debated or a belief to be accepted on faith. It is an invitation to look for yourself.