This Unexpected Jewel: Reading the Diamond Sutra

In This Unexpected Jewel , Ken McLeod offers a fresh and highly readable translation of the Diamond Sutra , one of the most revered texts in the Buddhist tradition. Trained in the Tibetan tradition and translating from the Tibetan, McLeod approaches the Diamond Sutra not as a philosophical treatise but as a series of pointing out instructions, that is, ways to cut through conceptual thinking to the essence of what we are. In short, it is a translation for practitioners crafted by a long-term practitioner and teacher.

This book is a guide for those who aspire to the bodhisattva ideal and seek to experience life as it is, not as they imagine it to be. It offers a devotional and experiential encounter with a text that for centuries has confounded those who rely on conceptual thinking, stopped the minds of beginners and masters alike, and revealed the possibility of a totally different way of living.

Through clear, natural language and careful word choice that reflect both the text's spiritual depth and conversational tone, McLeod opens a way for modern readers to experience directly the ineffable clarity that is this sutra's essential teaching.