by Alan Clements

After spending ten years in Burma studying as a Buddhist monk, author Alan Clements began travelling the world as a human rights activist. Instinct for Freedom is part memoir and part spiritual inquiry. He details his early years of living in silence in a Burmese monastery, offering a rare, beautiful, and nuanced account of the experience of intensive meditation and what it can offer. He goes on to illuminate a doctrine he calls World Dharma, the belief that no amount of spiritual practice or meditative training can adequately prepare one for life. One must find liberty through living firmly in the present no matter the circumstance. He gives voice to a politically engaged mysticism, based on the irreducible value of freedom. He teaches liberation from fear, ignorance, and dogma, and the elevation of dignity, conscience, and beauty.