New Books In East Asian Studies

Following the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism in the second half of the twentieth century, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings such as Mahāmudrā have become increasingly popular around the world. Drawn by teachings that seem to promise practitioners fast-tracked enlightenment through powerful meditative practices and the blessings of the personal principal Guru, Mahāmudrā has not only maintained followers from Tibet and Bhutan, but has also attracted scholars and practitioners from the West. In A Timely Message from the Cave, Dagmar Schwerk points out that while the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism has helped the Mahāmudrā practitioner community grow on a global scale, it has also brought numerous seemingly new challenges, such as disputes with respect to the correct transmission and authenticity of Tantric teachings. By investigating the commentarial writings of Je Gendun Rinchen (1926­–1997), the Sixty-Ninth Je Khenpo of Bhutan (the Chief Abbot of Bhutan), Schwerk finds that these disputes cover topics that