The Little Monk is nothing, but one huge dream. Often spiritual teachers instruct their students in the dream-time when their conscious minds are less resistant. Some of the shifting dream techniques found in Harvest of Gems were first pioneered in The Little Monk. There is a seemingly random drift to many of the dream sequences found in this children's tale for adults, but the exciting narrative is highly structured to include sacred teachings from all three Buddhist schools.

In part one Zen is explored along with techniques to open up the mind and train it for better riding like a prized horse. In part two, the Vajrayana is show-cased. Tibetan techniques are explained as the reader goes deeper into the mind and spiritual guides are finally invoked. By part three, the Theravadan concept of mindfulness is then introduced. Seeing mind feverishly tracking itself through all its big up and down spirals finally hints of something even larger then the mind-stream.

Indeed, Chitta the Sanskrit word for mind includes the heart as well because all emotion is just simply mind in motion, but in a different way than mind probing itself systematically and then ultimately drying up the mindheart river until it's empty and beyond just being ONE with all the other mindhearts in the big mindheart sea. Going deeper and first expanding outward can only be accomplished if the mind slows down and get's more and more still. It's a very delicate psychic operation.

The Little Monk was written at Tangpulu monastery in 1991 right in the middle of the Gulf War. The contrast between the peace and stillness that Tangpulu's presence conveyed during the birth of the book and the chaos and instability the world was feeling at the time is very much the legacy of this miraculous work for children and adults.

There are echoes of Kafka and St. Exupery in The Little Monk, but unlike the works of these two great writers. The Little Monk gives the reader real hope--that there is a way out of this dark and collective mind maze--that we all find ourselves in. This big and disorienting dream voyage has an ultimate end, indeed. And all we need to do is slowly wake up from it.