Book review: ‘Beyond Religion’ by the Dalai Lama

After a lifetime of Buddhist reflection, he suggests that religion is tea to the water of compassion. Tea is nutritious, water essential.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/21/entertainment/la-et-book-20111221

Now, as he steps down as leader of Tibet, the perpetually smiling monk in saffron and burgundy robes makes in “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World” what some may regard as a heretical pronouncement: You don’t need religion to lead a happy and ethical life.

Inspired by Michel Peissel. I visited Tibet last summer.

Has anyone read any of his books? Seem fascinating.

Michel Peissel, a French explorer and an ethnologist who devoted a good part of his life to recording the culture of Tibet and led numerous expeditions to seldom-traveled places, died on Oct. 7 at his home in Paris. He was 74.

In 16 books and more than 20 documentary films, Mr. Peissel chronicled his explorations of inaccessible or ignored regions of the globe, including the Tibetan high plateau, remote Russian river towns and unrecorded Mayan ruins.