This is the first book by the Dalai Lama that was translated into Russian and published in Russia. It contains twenty lectures given by him in the period 1979-1981, during his visits to the USA and Canada, translated by V. P. Androsov. Many of the chapters of this book have been circulating on the Internet for a long time in the form of separate texts (Four Noble Truths , Karma, Meditation, Eight verses for exercising the mind, The path to enlightenment, Union of old and new schools of translation).