Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 My first experience of death was when I was seven. I was preparing to leave the eastern highlands to travel to central Tibet. Samten, one of the personal attendants of my master, was dying. The monastery was saturated with an intense awareness of death, but it was not at all morbid or frightening. #2 The death of my master, Samten, shook me. I had just started understanding the power of the tradition, and I began to understand the purpose of spiritual practice. #3 The death of Samten taught me the purpose of spiritual practice: to understand the reality of death. The death of Lama Tseten taught me that it is not unusual for practitioners of his caliber to conceal their remarkable qualities during their lifetime. I understood that night that death is real, and that I would have to die. #4 I had to face many deaths during my lifetime. The most devastating was the death of my master Jamyang Khyentse, in 1959, the year of the fall of Tibet.