Kosambi Intrigue; A Tale in the Time of Buddha

When a trivial incident sparks conflict in a Buddhist monastery, a young monk named Sati is embroiled in a plot that reaches all the way to the palace and inflames the city of Kosambi. Amid corrosive tensions, Sati struggles to make sense of his monastic calling and the teachings of mindfulness and lovingkindness. He faces challenges that test even the wisdom of the Buddha, exposing the worst and inspiring the best in all those caught in the plot. The Kosambi Intrigue, rooted in actual events in ancient India, follows in the footsteps of Hermann Hesse's beloved masterwork, Siddhartha. Stephen Batchelor, author of best-selling Buddhism Without Beliefs, comments, "I loved The Kosambi Intrigue....The characters are distinctive and alive, the dramatic narrative unfolds at a steady, engaging pace and the world of the Buddha's time is sketched with great vividness, attention to detail and conviction. Although the situation occurred more than two thousand years ago, it is just as true of idiosyncratic humanity now as it was then....brilliantly done."
About the Author: Susan Stone, Ph.D., is author of "At the Eleventh Hour; Caring for My Dying Mother" (Present Perfect Books, 2001), a memoir on mindfulness and caregiving, which was nominated for "ForeWord Magazine's" Book of the Year award in 2001. Authors Stephen and Ondrea Levine called the book "an exquisite exploration of the heart." She is also co-author of "The American Mosaic" (McGraw Hill, 1995), a research study on workforce diversity, and is author of articles on mindfulness. "The Kosambi Intrigue" is her first novel. Susan has meditated for almost 30 years, has lived in monasteries for 3 years and has received mindfulness training from nationally recognized teachers. She teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction at the University of Virginia (www.uvamindfulnesscenter.org), and she co-leads the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville (www.imeditation.org), a weekly mindfulness meditation group. She has taught mindfulness to middle-school students; founded and taught weekly mindfulness groups in men's and women's maximum-security prisons; and is a co-founder of the Blue Ridge Prison Project. She was on the staff of the Being with Dying program at Upaya in Santa Fe NM for two years. Susan leads mindfulness workshops, classes and retreats around the country. She was a hospice volunteer and is a Reiki master who has worked with AIDS patients.