The Half Known Life by Pico Iyer

This is called a memoir, and it is on one level--the author has led a full life that has been full of travel and seeking new places, new experiences, and new learning. He is quite remarkable in that way, but this is more about seeking peace and enlightenment, finding the beauty in sitting still. has always been in thrall to clouds of unknowing, prizing glimpses of the ethereal in remote corners, clocking up air miles and epiphanies. He spent some time with Leonard Cohen in the five years he was a Zen Buddhist monk at Mount Baldy, near Los Angeles. He has been a friend and confidant of the Dalai Lama since they met at Dharamshala in 1974. He has often given the impression of a peripatetic personal Buddhism, without too much of the suffering. This particular quest – in search of the idea of paradise in the midst of political complication – is something of a summation of that roving life. It begins in Iran. Thoughts of ancient Persia return Iyer to some of the most mystical moments of his own life – it reminds him of the words of the Sufi poet Rumi, that if heaven is within, then “one leaf is worth more than all of Paradise” and moves on from there. Unfortunately, for all this richness of experience, both within himself and his extensive exposure to cultures and people who could shed light on his quest for a paradise of sorts, there is not much in the way of guidance in this book.