Hidden Buddha: Lama Rinzen in the Hungry Ghost Realm by Jim Ringel released in October in the Mystery, Literary  genre.

In Hidden Buddha Lama Rinzen finds herself reborn as a doctor into the Hungry Ghost Realm in a haunted hospital on Colorado’s eastern plains.

It’s an unfriendly place. The patients do not respect her, the staff ignores her, and there’s rumors of ghosts in the hospital.

Rinzen is afraid of ghosts. She is not even sure they truly exist. Instead she focuses on learning the Hungry Ghost Realm’s lesson about what the Buddha means when he talks about emptiness. If she can only learn that she will escape the hospital and progress along her path to enlightenment.

But nine-year-old patient Claudia says the ghosts are real, and that they are here to trap Rinzen so she might never learn and never escape the hospital. Not in this lifetime, and not in any future lifetimes either.

How can the lama learn without seeing the things she denies?

​Maybe that’s what the Buddha means when he talks about emptiness. These little bits of ourselves we keep suppressed and hidden and never admit to? 

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Meet the Author:

Jim Ringel is an unconventional Buddhist who writes the Lama Rinzen mysteries as part of his own spiritual path.

Each book in the series finds the lama reborn into one of the six Buddhist Realms on a search for deeper understanding along the path toward Nirvana.

Jim practices Zen, skis, hikes, bikes, and visits brew pubs throughout Colorado seeking the Buddha in everyday life.

Your book Hidden Buddha’s subtitle is Lama Rinzen in the Hungry Ghost Realm. What is the Hungry Ghost Realm?

The whole idea of Buddhism is that there are lessons to learn. You may have heard of Karma. Not a lot of people truly understand what Karma is. It is NOT that if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you. Nor does it mean if you do something good, a blessing will befall you.

Karma is not transactional. It is not tit for tat.

Karma refers to the fact that everything we do has a consequence. It might be good or bad or most usually a bit of both, but everything has a consequence. The trick isn’t to bemoan bad luck and pray for good, but to learn from what’s happening.

Let’s say I visit a friend who’s sick in the hospital. At the visit’s end he tells how meaningful he found my stopping by. I feel good to hear him say so. That’s karma. But a day later I feel sick. I take a Covid test and it comes back positive. I think back and conclude I got Covid from visiting the hospital.

That’s karma too. My charitable act of visiting a sick friend has both a good and bad consequence. The conclusion isn’t that I must never visit the sick because it will give me Covid. Nor is the conclusion I should always visit the sick even if it kills me.

The conclusion is probably more nuanced. It’s probably more like my learning that doing something good has both positive and negative results. Further, it’s learning I cannot rigidly control all outcomes of the many things I do.

Because there is no certainty. The lessons are how well do we cope with uncertainty.

Okay. So why the Hungry Ghost Realm? First, each Lama Rinzen mystery takes place in one of the six Buddhist realms, which are:

The Hell Realm

The Hungry Ghost Realm

The Animal Realm

The Human Realm

The Warring Titan Realm

The God Realm

In a fanciful and magical way of thinking, each realm is meant to teach a specific lesson. 

The Hell Realm how to deal with confusion without becoming angry and lashing out.

The Animal Realm deals with surviving in a dog-eat-dog world.

The Human Realm teaches how to behave compassionately without being eaten up by passion.

The Warring Titan Realm deals with jealousy.

The God Realm deals with the pros and cons of feeling superior.

And the Hungry Ghost Realm, the realm Hidden Buddha deals with, is about facing what scares us. The way we create delusions to deal with uncertainty. The way we pretend we are in control.

No matter how well or how badly we behave, there is no assured outcome. If the realms properly teach us anything, they teach how to be flexible enough to roll with the life’s ups and downs.

That is the lesson I explore in Hidden Buddha. 

connect with the author: website ~ facebook ~ twitter ~ bookbub ~ goodreads

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This post is part of a tour. Here is the tour schedule.

Giveaway

signed copy of HIDDEN BUDDHA: LAMA RINZA IN THE HUNGRY GHOST REALM plus $20 TARGET Gift Card (1 winner/USA only)

https://gleam.io/jr39X/hidden-buddha-book-tour-giveaway

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