His Holiness the Dalai Lama is known around the world for his spiritual gifts of deep listening, genuine compassion, and joyful play in his encounters with both ordinary people and well-known individuals. For 40 years, Victor Chan has been a personal confidant of His Holiness as well as being the Founder of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver. The Wisdom of Compassion is the second collaboration between the two: the first was The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys.

This is a heart-affecting up-close and personal portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he travels the world giving lectures, leading conferences, meeting old friends and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winners, school children, and neurologists. This Tibetan seer says repeatedly that the path to happiness is through practicing compassion — and not just for those we love and who are close to our heart but also for strangers and enemies.

"All the people, even if they are hostile, are living beings like me who fear suffering and want happiness. They have every right not to suffer, and to achieve happiness. That thought makes us feel deep concern for the well-being of all others. It is the basis of genuine compassion."

It is interesting to read about the soul connections he makes with a blind Irishman, whom he refers to as "my hero," and Paul Ekman, a psychologist who is surprised by His Holiness's personal warmth and comes away feeling that they were brothers in a previous life. We also were delighted to read about the Dalai Lama's meetings with Desmond Tutu and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. The former says of his friend: "People are aware he is someone special. That he cares, that he is warmhearted. And he lives what he preaches."