Flight of the Bön Monks

An inside account of the Chinese invasion of Tibet told through the voices of three persecuted monks

2024 International Book Award Nonfiction - Creative Category

This book shares the true story of three monks’ heroic escape from occupied Tibet and the subsequent rebirth of the Bön religion in exile. It introduces Bön, Tibet's oldest religion, and a traditional way of life extinguished by foreign occupation. It also reveals details of the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet and the exodus of thousands of Tibetans to neighbouring countries.

Providing an inside view into the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the tenets of Bön, one of the world's oldest but least known religions, Flight of the Bön Monks chronicles the incredible resilience, determination, and passion of three Bön monks who heroically escaped occupied Tibet and went on to rebuild their culture. After taking his vows to become a Bön monk and completing a pilgrimage around 22,000-foot Mount Kailash, the holiest mountain in Tibet, Tenzin Namdak envisions a life of quiet contemplation at Menri, Bön’s mother monastery. Instead, he finds himself fleeing for his life across the highest and most difficult terrain on the planet.

After Tenzin’s escape party is ambushed and he is severely wounded, he is taken to a concentration camp, where he overcomes his nearly fatal wound before making an arduous escape from Tibet over the daunting Himalayas.

The other two monks, lifelong friends Samten Karmay and Sangye Tenzin, witness Tibet’s capital explode in a violent insurrection against Chinese rule. Escaping to Nepal, they worry about the survival of the Bön religion and begin collecting scattered works of Bön scripture. A chance meeting with British scholar David Snellgrove brings the three monks together and dramatically changes their lives. Tenzin founds a Bön settlement in exile in India, Sangye is chosen as the thirty-third Menri Trizen, Bön’s highest office, and together the three monks help rebuild the nearly extinct Bön religion. Aside from the escape of the Dalai Lama, no other escape from Tibet has been so consequential for so many.