The Monk who F*cked Everything

A Brief History of Print Capital from Ancient Tibet to Modern America

AUTHOR’s NOTE: I’m deeply involved in a new investigation into a potentially deadly health tonic called “Feel Free” that is available at gas stations and wellness shops around the country. So this week I’m sending out a rerun of one of my all-time-favorite videos along with this freshly-penned newsletter.

Have you ever wondered how Tantric Buddhism made its way down from the high Himalayas and into Yoga studios and wellness literature all around the world? Have you ever pondered the historical currents that eventually ended up with millions of people cutting out the pages of magazines to make vision board collages? If so, then, well, I have a story to tell you.

My own fascination in the historical roots of Buddhism has a few different starting points. First, when I was a 20 year old college student I spent a year abroad tromping around Indian deserts and remote mountain caves in Tibet where I met reclusive monks who had spent their lives maintaining secretive shrines on their own personal quest for enlightenment. And then, later, in 2006 when I led an abroad program of my own. On that trip one of my students, a woman named Emily O'Conner, took her life after a seven day silent meditation retreat in the town in India where the Buddha attained enlightenment 2800 years ago.

That second event—where I dealt with the aftermath of her death—preserving her body in 100 degree heat, coordinating with police who at first thought she had been murdered, and ultimately chartering a private plane to Delhi with her coffin—was the origin for most of my journalism. It inspired me to investigate the trade in human body parts in The Red Market after I learned that bodies have their own life after death in commercial markets. And then, more directly in my book The Enlightenment Trap, where I tried to understand what insights drove her to take her own life.

After all, Emily didn’t kill herself because she was despondent, but because she was sure that she was on the cusp of enlightenment.

Some of the last words in her journal were “I am a Bodhisattva.”