Opening the Eye of New Awareness is a thoroughly but succinct overview of Buddhist doctrines as they have been practiced in Tibet for a thousand years. Among the many topics the Dalai Lama discusses in this work are the need for religious practice, the path to achieving meditative stabilization, reincarnation, and the importance of kindness and compassion. Completed just four years after his escape from Tibet and four years after completing his religious education, it is a work of consummate scholarship.

Originally written for Tibetan laypeople, this was the Dalai Lama's first book on Buddhist philosophy to appear in English. Professor Lopez's brilliant translation and new introduction place these remarkable teachings in their proper historical context. Sensitively interpreted by Ken McLeod, a renowned student and teacher of Buddhism and meditation, Opening the Eye of New Awareness provides a compendium of Buddhist doctrine and practice that is both dense and rich -- serving at once as a summation of knowledge and as an invitation to further study. This is an invaluable handbook for personal use and for academic study of the Buddhist path.