David Michie
About the book: Buddhism for Busy People
David Michie was born and brought up in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Britain’s last colony in Africa was a place where imperial values still held sway, and a conventional education was accompanied by regular Sunday School at the Presbyterian Church.
It was as a teenager in the late 1970’s that he first heard about Tibetan Buddhism, later discovering the books of T. Lobsang Rampa, an English plumber claiming to be a reincarnated lama who wrote utterly fanciful but wildly popular tales about life in Himalayan monasteries.
David gained more credible glimpses of Buddhism while studying Jung as part of his psychology degree, also developing a keen interest in cognitive behaviour therapy and other concepts he later discovered form a central part of Buddhist psychology. During his twenties and early thirties, his career in corporate public relations and social life became pre-eminent - all more esoteric interests were put firmly on hold. There they may have remained were it not for an allergic condition in his early thirties which led to the start of his meditation practice and a journey of inner growth.
Within two years of beginning to meditate, David achieved a long-held ambition of becoming a published writer. And having met and married his Australian wife, they moved to Perth where he continued his work both in public relations and writing. Away from the frenetic buzz of the big city, he was able to develop his interest in Tibetan Buddhism much further, attending regular classes and retreats. Buddhism for Busy People describes David’s encounter with the Dharma, both in London and Perth, weaving an autobiographic narrative through a presentation of core Tibetan Buddhist concepts.
Buddhism for Busy People was reprinted in its first edition four times, and was published in a second edition in time for the 2007 visit to Australia by His Holiness the Dalai Lama – a tour in which it was David’s privilege to play a small organisational role. Given the success of the book, and the heart-warming emails he continues to receive from readers, David is currently working on a new book about meditation, to be published in 2008.
David’s author website can be found at: www.davidmichie.com
