Turtle Feet | Nikolai Grozni | One of the best, most vivid Buddhist adventure books ever

Turtle Feet | Nikolai Grozni | Nikolai, say it like it is.....you the man!

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Turtle Feet

	Turtle Feet Nikolai Grozni Riverhead Hardcover, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nikolai Grozni was a music prodigy, a jazz pianist training at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, when suddenly he decided to transform his life. He moved to India to become a Buddhist monk?shaving his head, learning Tibetan, and donning long traditional robes. In the Himalayas?living in a hut a stone?s throw from the Dalai Lama?s compound? Grozni became entrenched in a sometimes comical, sometimes reverent, always intriguing community comprised of feisty nuns, bossy monks, violent chess players, demanding teachers, and a spectacular friend called Tsar, a fallen monk from Bosnia.

Grozni went to India in search of knowledge, but learns that the people who can teach him the most are not wearing uniforms and following special diets, but rather those who, like him, struggle with doubts and cannot accept an established system of faith. Instead, he journeys with his colorful cast of friends to a new understanding of himself and his place in the world.

Like Anne Lamott or Elizabeth Gilbert, Nikolai Grozni offers the insights of a religious pilgrim from the inside?in his case, from a male, Buddhist perspective. Thoughtful, funny, and elegantly written, Turtle Feet details the reality of a world much mythologized in the West and tells a wonderfully bittersweet story of a spiritual journey.

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One of the best, most vivid Buddhist adventure books ever

I can't say enough good things about this wonderful, exciting book. It has everything in it: vivid descriptions of horrid conditions, cuddly rats, snakes named Mona Lisa, very insightful passages about Buddhist teaching presented in a non-dogmatic way, linguistic trivia and examples, and of course extremely vibrant human characters. You might think that if Tsar, the Bosnia ex-monk who is constantly playing chess, fighting, making love and planning to escape India, is the central character, and he is, that the author couldn't paint others in as realistic a light. And yet he does. Vinnie, the crazy 70-year-old German who pisses on the floor of the kitchen and whose feet are oderiferous in the extreme, comes across in full living technicolor. But surprisingly, the author paints himself as a real human in no-less detail, which was really really neat. I almost feel as if I know him. I certain feel as if he and I share the same common human traits of desire for englightenment, and everything baser. But it is more than that. The book's details and word painting are just staggering. Excellent job! I wish I could read Bulgarian in order to enjoy your other books. You (Mr. Grozni) are one superb author!!!!

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Nikolai, say it like it is.....you the man!

This book is the closest thing to English "ter" (spiritual treasure) I've come across. Grozni transfers the Buddhist understanding of emptiness magically through his brilliant use of prose. Tsar, the indulger is the symbolic embodiment of Guru Rinpoche. While in sexual union with his consort his monastic and lay vajra brothers attain insight into unborn wisdom along with the reader. Nikolai surprised me, this is the best book I've ever read...in English.
Sarva Mangalam

I Loved this Book!!!!

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R267LYJ1OP3CA9

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Interesting, but a little disappointing.

While the author of "Turtle Feet" is a very talented writer, (when he is describing the beauty of his surroundings, he sometimes verges on the poetic) in this book, he spends way, way too much time detailing the exploits of his manic, foul-mouthed, Bosnian, ex-Monk friend, Tsar. Grozni's religious/spiritual experiences as a novice monk take a back seat to Tsar's theatrics.

People in India - like people everywhere - all share certain human traits. You get a bunch of young men living together in a community (even a Tibetan Buddhist community) and there are going to be some there with bad tempers, some with mental problems, some who swear like sailors, some who love to talk about sex, and some who use drugs. Maybe the author thought it was important to let us know this. But there is so much more that he could have shared with us - things unique to his life in India - that he did not.

While the book offers a glimpse into a far-off world, it left me wishing the author had "waxed poetic" on more occasions and spent less time on his friend's passport/housing/woman troubles.

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Not about spirituality

For anybody who would like to read a book about Tibetan Buddhist spirituality - this is not about this topic. Unlike most Westerns the author does not join Buddhism in search of mystical experience but enters the path at its most repressed, intellectual and dogmatic - as a Buddhist monk specializing in philosophical debate. Surprisingly, at the same time he is full of rebellion and describes his Buddhist teachers and fellow monks and nuns as incredibly stupid, uncompassionate, sex-crazed and even abusive. The majority of this book deals with the author's friends which are a drug-taking, prostitute-visiting, violent and foul-mouthed bunch who have no interest in Buddhism whatsoever. All in all the author comes across as well-intentioned but incredibly immature.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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