John Blofeld, " The Wheel of Life", published by "The Meeting Point", Vicenza 1994
Commenting on a book, we can not but consider it in its context also temporal. In the '50s not yet know the mass distribution of Eastern thought that we have today. It was the era in which the accounts of travels, bathed in an aura of exoticism, held the place now occupied by the reflection on liberation and suggestions on the practice. Think of all 'Autobiography of a Yogi that Yogananda had already written before it had spread internationally since the '50s .
Blofeld's book presented here is significantly subtitled " Autobiography of a Western Buddhist ", and its first edition was in fact the 1959.
The author, a Buddhist tantric English, spent much time in Asia, especially China . Important contribution was his meeting with Lama Govinda . Many of his books have been translated into Italian, think of The doctrine of Zen Huang Po, a Zen Teaching of Hui You to Taoism, all published by Ubaldini, or even Art Chinese Tea , published by Mediterranee, or finally to the Secret and the Sublime, for the types of Mondadori.
The wheel of life should be read with great pleasure and is an easy book, in its best sense, while not presenting quell'inflazione supernatural that presented instead auttobiografia, before cited, of Paramahansa Yogananda . Appear blade, Taoist masters, Zen monks, even the meeting, contained in the second edition of the book with the Dalai Lama , which occurred in 1969 . All
But in a climate measured, not fabulous, we would say strongly Buddhist. In the Introduction, the author makes clear in this respect: "... I have omitted some amazing experience, fear of being considered a naive or a fool. So it may be that some readers find the book lacks an adequate number of drug events ... The real wonders are the wonders of the human spirit and of these, the book contains several "(p. 11).
example of these intentions is the beautiful passage devoted to visiting the garden Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha . Blofeld was first saddened because of the state prevailing in the place, a barren wasteland interrupted by historical commemorative column of Ashoka . Then he closes his eyes and plunges into a discursive meditation to evoke the magic that certainly had release in that place His best season.
It appears to the mind of the pilgrim, the scene of the birth of the Blessed One, in a kind of active imagination. "What I saw was neither a dream or a vision. I just closed my eyes and I had a picture of the events that caused deliberatamete had made Lumbini a place to remember forever " (p. 286.
Louis Turinese
In pictures: "Stars lost '
Review appeared in the" Books "to" PARAM, Notebooks for the practice of Buddhism and dialogue ", Year XIV, No. 55, July-September 1995
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