Sera: The Way of the Tibetan Monk
ISBN: 9780231502955
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Columbia University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Religious life -- Buddhism;

The Sera Jey Monastery, reestablished near Mysore, India, houses 5,000 Buddhist monks living in exile--including survivors of the destruction of the Tibetan monastery in 1959. Sheila Rock's moving portraits are a celebration of the everyday simplicity and subtle beauty of the ascetic life. More than a hundred duotone photographs document the compassionate expressions, emotional openness, and aura of serenity inspired by lives of renunciation and seclusion.

A percentage of the royalties from this book go to the Sera Jhe Health Care Committee in aid of various humanitarian projects.


Sheila Rock is a professional photographer living in London. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and has been accepted into the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. She began photographing the Sera Jey monks in 1998.
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