Why does an idea thats 2,500 years old seem more relevant today than ever before? How can the Buddhas teachings help us solve many of the worlds problems? Journalist Perry Garfinkel circumnavigated the globe to discover the heart of Buddhism and the reasons for its growing popularityand ended up discovering himself in the process.The assignment from National Geographic couldnt have come at a better time for Garfinkel. Burned out, laid up with back problems, disillusioned by relationships and religion itself, he was still hoping for that big journalistic breakand the answers to lifes biggest riddles as well. So he set out on a geographic, historical and personal expedition that would lead him around the world in search of those answers, and then some.First, to better understand the man who was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama, he followed the time-honored pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Buddha in India. From there, he tracked the historical course of Buddhism: to Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, Tibet, Japan and on to San Francisco and Europe. He found that the Buddhas teachings have spawned a worldwide movement of engaged Buddhism, the application of Buddhist principles to resolve social, environmental, health, political and other contemporary problems. From East to West and back to the East again, this movement has caused a Buddhism Boom. Along the way he met a diverse array of Buddhist practitionersThai artists, Indian nuns, Sri Lankan school children, Zen archers in Japan, kung fu monks in China and the worlds first Buddhist comic (only in America). Among dozens of Buddhist scholars and leaders, Garfinkel interviewed His Holiness the Dalai Lama, an experience that left him speechlessalmost. As just reward for his efforts, toward the end of his journey Garfinkel fell in love in the south of France at the retreat center of a leader of the engaged movement, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanha romance that taught him as much about Buddhism as all the masters combined. In this original, entertaining book, Garfinkel separates Buddhist fact from fiction, sharing his humorous insights and keen perceptions about everything from spiritual tourism to Asian traffic jams to the endless road to enlightenment.From the Hardcover edition.