I wanted to go to India in the early seventies and search for a guru, but I wanted so many other things too, and I did them instead. Daniel Odier went.

So did a great many others, and what they found was a measure of themselves. Some found a way to make erotic experience fresher, some found dope deals, some found a guru and a new lifestyle. Some found the face they had before they were born.

Daniel Odier teaches what he found, and he teaches with permission. That is, his own teachers have authorized him to pass it on. It is almost incredible that a person from a Western culture, with no initial knowledge of the languages and traditions, should be welcomed, trained in this way, and succeed in entering the line of teachers. It is almost unbelievable that he should find the masters to teach him in the first place--they are rare as stars in the daytime. On top of that, he has done the scholarship and the practice required to join together the three traditions of Zen, Ch'an and Kashmiri Shaivite Tantra. I do not think there can be a more trustworthy source today on these subjects, a true source springing from practical experience rather than solely from academic study.

This work is newly and competently translated from the original French. Like Daniel Odier's earlier work on the Vijnanabhairava Tantra, it takes the form of a commentary on his translation of an ancient and beautiful text. This commentary is authoritative but it is not an exegesis. It is personal and directed to the student who wishes to do the practice. Once more, something extraordinary occurs: to read it is to be convinced that if anyone can understand a line like, "In the absolute sense, pleasure and pain, subject and object are nothing but the space of deep awareness," and bring you to your own understanding of that line, it is Daniel Odier.