Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk

by Nikolai Grozni

Book Overview

A brilliantly colorful memoir of becoming a monk, Turtle Feet details a young man's spiritual--and not-so-spiritual--journey in India. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594483760
• ISBN13: 9781594483769
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

another side of the spiritual path

Truthful, humorous and refreshing. The author entered the Path whole heartedly, jumped in and followed through. He seems to watch his life unfold as he lives it. This is a side of the spiritual journey rarely written about in such good spirit. Much food for thought - cultural and religious differences, bugs in the soup, the life style. The book cover is perfect and says it all.

Excellent and provocative reading

Went to bed last night and had to finish it this morning. Extremely witty, the story describes rather naive conceptions of western people becoming Buddhist monks in search of ultimate reality. It gives some funny insights into the realm of the monastic life in Dharamsala, but is rather colored by the simple ideas of the author and his companions in his journey to enlightenment. So, though not very spirituality deep, extremely entertaining and full of delightful descriptions of Indian life.

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!!!!

Wry and Wise

Are you tired of reading Buddhist books about serene, serious, saffron robed monks sitting on cushions mediatating on the nature of emptiness? Then it's time for 'Turtle Feet' a raucous look at what Buddhist life is really like. Author Grozni, a Bulgarian music prodigy studying jazz piano at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, decides to chuck it all and go to India in order to learn the meaning of life. He travels to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama in exile and thousands of Tibetan refugees from Communist China. There Grozni becomes a monk newly named Lodro Chosang. The streets of Dharamsala are teeming with life as thousands converge there from all over the world to study the dharma and perhaps get a glimpse of the Dalai Lama. Grozni's account of his life of poverty there is vivid and his assortment of friends fascinating. Grozni lives with a Bosnian war refugee with no passport named, Tsar. Tsar is an ex-monk, having violated one of the Buddhist precepts and having had sex with a beautiful Israeli girl. Other members of the household include Mona Lisa, a huge green snake, a plethora of rats (one named Thomas Edison) and various other wild life large and small. While Grozni studies at the nearby monastery with an emotionally abusive Geshe (Geshe being the Ph.d of the monk world), attempting to memorize sacred texts and master advanced debating techniques worthy of samurai warriors, Tsar carouses, plays chess for hours, smokes dope and ruminates about how to get out of India with no passport. Years go by, friends come and go and Grozni learns that to understand something clearly one must give it up. His Buddhist journey is wry and wise.

Spiritual and scandalous too....

I finished Turtle Feet last night before bed, and I dreamt all night about one of the characters--the eccentric, ribald, rebellious and loveable alcoholic womanizing Bosnian ex-monk called Tsar. I never expected that this book would make me laugh so hard and dream so vividly. I chose the book because I was curious to know what could make a handsome, gifted young man with so much musical talent--who had only just managed to get out of Bulgaria to the States--decide to give up everything and enter a Tibetan monastery. I didn't expect that Grozni's monastic world would be so down to earth, filled with so many quirky, damaged, endearing, curious, intriguing, and truly sympathetic characters. I had not expected to encounter sexually frustrated monks, nuns on the verge of nervous breakdowns, weary adventurers plagued by loneliness and longing, competitive chess players brawling over matches, and most interesting to me--people who struggle, as I do, with the question of whether they have chosen the right path. Is what they are committed to meaningful and worthwhile, or of it is just another farce, another man-made construction in this absurd world? This was a great book! Moving, enlightening and damn funny. It is definitely a must read if you are interested in Tibet and monks and spirituality... For me though, I loved it because it gave me a clever, irreverent, sometimes hilarious insider's peek behind the curtain into a secret world--a world that I had no idea was scandalous as often as it is spiritual and serene.