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In the Tibetan Mahahyana tradition, however, that Wright is familiar with, both monastics and lay practitioners are referred to as `bodhisattvas' once they have taken vows to deliver all beings. Her story of determination and courage deserved better editing in general. I was surprised to read that, during Wright's visit to Wat Pa Ban Tat monastery in Thailand described on pages 93-4, a Thai monk would call Wright a 'bodhisattva.' Thai monks belong to the Theravada tradition that uses the term `bodhisattva' to refer only to the past lives of the Buddha, such as those recounted in the Jataka tales.
It rises in Zambia about 690 miles southwest of Uganda, and flows south through Angola and Zambia to the border with Zimbabwe, and then east to Mozambique and finally to the Indian Ocean. It is often presented in a style that seemed like a rush from here to there in the pursuit of physical recovery. Wright is a gifted photgrapher dedicated to humanitarian issues.
I was excited to read this book, having an interest both in adventurous women and Buddhism, however, I have to agree with Publishers Weekly that harder editing would have helped. Wright throws out, "Next stop Uganda, to white-water raft the Zambezi River, in hair-raising class five rapids." The Zambezi certainly doesn't flow anywhere near Uganda. I wished for more of her insights and development as a Buddhist practitioner, especially on her development of lovingkindness on the path of a bodhisattva.
This is a major distinciton between the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. Another instance that surprised me occurs on page 209.
I highly recommend this book. The book is fast moving, interesting, and very hard to set down once you start reading. As a photographer, this book really appeals to me but it's much more than a book about a photo-journalist and her travels around the world. It's an incredible survival story.
The actual crash is but a small slice of her incredible journey from the road to recovery. This book by Ms. Wright is by far the best story of survival I have read to date.
I would highly recommend it to all women and possibly some adventuresome men. I so enjoyed this book.every second of it and I was so sad when I finished it. I cannot believe that Alison Wright had the strength to get through all she did.
Every step of the way we feel we are with her, unable to put her book down, taking it in with a single gulp -- from the frightened Laotian boy doctor trying to stitch up her lacerated arm with an upholstery needle and thread, to the diffcult tests she put herself through afterwards, some of them impossibly brave. The spiritual side of her voyage is present -- she is a committed Buddhist and a meditator -- but it is personal courage that dominates the book. This book is about her almost accidental survival from a horrific bus accident, her struggle to win her way back to life, and her eventual return to the high-flying career that took her all over the world, from the North Pole to the South, the bottom of the ocean to Tibet, and always with her camera to record the essential message of what it means to be human.
What drives a person to defy every threat and toss eight out of her nine lives away in order to bring back pictures of humankind that may make the world care just a little more. I will give copies to the people I know will enjoy it and only wish that perhaps it had some more of her photographs -- there are certainly some good ones -- and that another, fuller edition lies ahead and gets the attention it truly deserves. We can only guess, in this profoundly personal account, by glimpsing the world through her own eyes.
When photojournalist Alison Wright celebrated the Millenium with champagne and her fun-loving friends in Northern Thailand, she had no premonition that less than two days later she would be lying torn, broken, bleeding, and close to death on the side of a road in Laos. Like her many friends, we can only wonder what she is made of.
Her book is a compulsive read, interweaving the glamorous episodes of her life as a National Geographic and UNICEF photographer -- meeting Richard Gere, the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi and other world leaders -- with the painstaking business of her recovery. Our attention is a given, our admiration is wholehearted.
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