This unique and fresh presentation of Tibetan Buddhism provides a tool kit for how to be a twenty-first-century Buddhist, whether living in a busy city or a rural hermitage. These teachings go straight to the heart of why a person should bother with a spiritual path in the age of cell phones and shopping malls.

Avikrita Vajra Sakya Rinpoche, a twenty-six-year-old Tibetan lama born in Seattle and now residing in a monastery in the Himalayan foothills, teaches meditation and Buddhist philosophy to people from all over the world. He makes a direct and compelling case for the Buddhist path and offers a clear guide on how to use our own modern life circumstances to cultivate loving-kindness, compassion, wisdom, and our own buddha nature.

Wake Up to What Matters: A Guide to Tibetan Buddhism for the Next Generation, Avikrita Vajra Sakya, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 152 pages, $16.95

Avikrita Vajra Sakya is a young, dynamic Buddhist teacher who is tuned in to Western culture and has trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Rinpoche straddles both worlds through growing up in America and now living in the Dzongsar Institute in India, studying Buddhist philosophy and teaching monks and nuns throughout the Himalayas. He is Head Lama of Sakya's Phunstok Phodrang and Sakya Monastery in Seattle and is ranked as one of the highest lamas in Tibetan Buddhism. He has thousands of students throughout America, Europe, and Asia and regularly travels internationally to teach.

Avikrita Vajra Rinpoche is a leading figure in the new generation of Sakya scholars, practitioners and teachers. He relocated from the USA to Dehradun in northern India at the tender age of four to undertake the traditional, comprehensive and rigorous Buddhist education required to follow in his forebears� footsteps in becoming a teacher in his tradition, studying under the most revered masters of his lineage, including H.H. the 41st Sakya Gongma Trichen Rinpoche, his late grandfather H.H. Jigdal Dagchen Dorje Chang, H.E. Luding Khenchen Rinpoche and other great lamas. He began teaching the profound Dharma teachings of the Buddha with inimitable warmth, clarity and insight in 2012 to both Tibetan and Westerners, and shortly after that to Chinese Buddhists in the Far East.

These days, Rinpoche spends much of the year at the Dzongsar Institute where he continues to study, teach, and undergo retreats. When not in Dzongsar, he travels extensively to the USA, UK, Europe, Nepal, Taiwan, Hong Kong and many other places to share the Dharma. Rinpoche also encourages people to get up from their meditation cushions from time to time to put the Dharma into action in helping others through The Marici Fellowship, which he founded in 2018 to co-ordinate community welfare projects. He also established The Bhadracarya Foundation in Nepal to maintain annual Buddhist activities in Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. He is Head Lama of Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in Seattle as well as the Sakya Heritage Society in New Delhi. Rinpoche is also author of the book published by Shambhala, Wake Up to What

Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama	vii
Foreword by Abhaya Vajra Sakya	ix
Introduction	xiii
1. Buddhism for the Next Generation	1
2. Discovering the Riches of Buddhism	9
3. The Miracle of Awakening	23
4. The Cause for Attaining Everything on the Path	35
5. Putting Aspiration into Action	41
6. Transforming the Mind	47
7. As Fearless as Tara	71
8. The Transformative Power of Compassion	85
9. Victory Over All Obstacles	99
10. Questions for the Modern Practitioner	115
11. Being a Twenty-First-Century Buddhist	123
About the Author	131