Turtle feet

Nikolai Grozni

Nikolai Grozni was a music prodigy, a jazz pianisttraining at the prestigious Berklee College of Musicin Boston, when suddenly he decided to transformhis life. He moved to India to become a Buddhistmonk—shaving his head, learning Tibetan, and donninglong traditional robes. In the Himalayas—livingin a hut a stone's throw from the Dalai Lama's compound—Grozni became entrenched in a sometimescomical, sometimes reverent, always intriguingcommunity comprised of feisty nuns, bossy monks,violent chess players, demanding teachers, and aspectacular friend called Tsar, a fallen monk fromBosnia.Grozni went to India in search of knowledge, butlearns that the people who can teach him themost are not wearing uniforms and following specialdiets, but rather those who, like him, struggle withdoubts and cannot accept an established system offaith. Instead, he journeys with his colorful cast offriends to a new understanding of himself and hisplace in the world.Like Anne Lamott or Elizabeth Gilbert, NikolaiGrozni offers the insights of a religious pilgrimfrom the inside—in his case, from a male, Buddhistperspective. Thoughtful, funny, and elegantly written,Turtle Feet details the reality of a world muchmythologized in the West and tells a wonderfullybittersweet story of a spiritual journey.