In the Shadow of the Buddha
Author: Matteo Pistono Category: Autobiography ISBN: 9789381431078 Binding: Paperback Dimensions: 226 x 152 Number of Pages: 288
For nearly a decade, Matteo Pistono smuggled out of Tibet evidence of atrocities by the Chinese
government, showing it to the United States government, human rights organisations, and anyone
who would listen. Yet Pistono did not originally intend to fight for social justice in Tibet – he had
gone there as a Buddhist pilgrim. Pistono’s quest led him to Tibet and to a meditation master whose
spiritual brother is Sogyal Rinpoche, bestselling author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Pistono
not only became the master’s student but also couriered messages to him in Tibet from the Dalai
Lama in India. This began an extraordinary, and ultimately vital, adventure.
In the Shadow of the Buddha is a book about Tibet through the eyes of a devotee – a stranger hiding
in plain sight. It’s about how a culture’s rich spiritual past is slipping away against the force of a
tyrannical future. It’s about how Tibetans live today, and the tenacity of their faith in the future in
spite of dire repression and abuse. It’s also about Pistono’s own journey from being a frustrated
political activist to becoming a practicing Buddhist mystic, a man who traveled thousands of miles
and risked his own life to pursue freedom and peace.
‘This story of Matteo Pistono’s quest to visit places in Tibet associated with Tert
Matteo Pistono
Matteo Pistono is a writer, photographer, practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal (Hay House 2014). Pistono lived and traveled throughout Tibet and the Himalayas for a decade, bringing to the West graphic accounts and photos of China's human rights abuses in Tibet, detailed in his memoir, In the Shadow of the Buddha. Pistono's writings and photographs about Tibetan and Himalayan cultural, political, and spiritual landscapes have appeared in The Washington Post, BBC's In-Pictures, The Global Post, Men's Journal, Kyoto Journal, and HIMAL South Asia.