The Wheel of Life: The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist

First of all, despite its title The Wheel of Life and cover photo, the work has little to do with the Buddhist concept of hell, but rather with life itself--in this case, the life of it

First of all, despite its title The Wheel of Life and cover photo, the work has little to do with the Buddhist concept of hell, but rather with life itself--in this case, the life of its author and his on-again/off-again search for the eternal Truth, a path that winds through many different schools and practices of Buddhism, and lingers for a while in Zen, before staying its course in Vajrayana Buddhism.

This wonderfully honest and charming autobiography takes us back to the days before many of the famous temples in China were destroyed (first by the Japanese, then the Communists, then the Red Guards), back when John could wear a long grey Chinese gown in the streets of Beijing without seeming eccentric, or hire a mule cart to carry him up to the heights of Mt. Tai Shan. It's a lovely tale of a young man who had Chuangzi's butterfly dream when he was 5 years old, and convinced a maiden aunt to buy a small Buddha for him when 9, and who left for China to live his dream while still at University. He converted to Buddhism as an adolescent and spent the rest of his life--sometimes more ardently and earnestly than others--trying to follow its path, but he is honest throughout of his successes and failures in this area. It's also a tale of shamans and travel experiences, meetings with great teachers and Lamas and even the Dalai Lama himself. As one shares with the author his disappointments and insights, one can only hope that in the last decade of his life he was more content with his progress than he confesses in the book's final chapter.

Reading it, one feels as though one is sitting in John's study, sharing a glass of sherry and listening to his life story. I never wanted the visit to end. Yes it's outdated, but that gave me the opportunity to step back into time and engage with the past that was China and as a Metropolitan curator [Marla Prather] once said, "Anytime you can step out of time [with an art work] is a gift from that artist". Readers who enjoy this book will also enjoy reading The Years that were Fat by George Kates and will certainly want to read others works by Blofeld himself.