In Search of Buddha's Daughters
In Search of Buddha's Daughters

Author: Christine Toomey

Publisher: The Experiment

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1615191941

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A 60,000-mile odyssey in search of Buddhist nuns—hailed as “inspiring and necessary” (Kirkus), “ambitious” (Tricycle), and “compelling” (Financial Times) They come to the monastic Buddhist life from every faith and career: a policewoman, a princess, a Bollywood star, a violinist. Out of the public eye, despite hardship and even persecution, they vow to seek enlightenment in a world full of noise. Who are these women? What motivates them, and what stands in their way? Award-winning journalist Christine Toomey investigates. From Nepal to California, she encounters unforgettable nuns who reveal the blessings—and perils—of carrying a 2,500-year tradition into the twenty-first century. Often denied equal status with monks, they are nonetheless devoted—to their faith, and to change.

The Saffron Road
The Saffron Road

Author: Christine Toomey

Publisher: Portobello Books

Published: 2015-06-04

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 184627494X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A brief meeting with a Buddhist nun in India made a deep impression on Christine Toomey. It sent her on a two-year, 60,000-mile odyssey to learn more about the contemporary women choosing in their thousands to become part of a long tradition of female spirituality that stretches back through the centuries and now embraces the radical possibility that the next Dalai Lama could be female. In The Saffron Road, Toomey follows in the footsteps of earlier generations of Buddhist nuns to trace the routes by which the philosophy has spread from a solitary order in a remote area of India in the 5th century BC, via 1950s San Francisco where Zen was popularised by the Beat generation, to the globally-renowned practitioners of mindfulness of today. Beginning her journey in the Himalayas, close to the birthplace of the Buddha, Toomey travels from Nepal, to India, through Burma, Japan and on to North America and Europe, along the way visiting contemporary nunneries to meet the women who practise there. Amongst those she talks to are a group of "kung fu" nuns, an acclaimed novelist, a princess, a concert violinist, a former BBC journalist, and a one-time Washington political aide. Through these conversations, the daily reality of the Buddhist existence is gradually revealed, together with the diverse spiritual paths leading these women towards nirvana. Combining travelogue, history, interviews and personal reflection, The Saffron Road opens the door to a rarely glimpsed world of ritual, discipline and enlightenment.

Buddha's Daughters
Buddha's Daughters

Author: Andrea Miller

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0834829657

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Buddhism began to take root in the West at just the same time that women’s voices were arising to find expression here—after millennia of being relegated to the background. If that was a coincidence, it was an auspicious one, for the women who emerged as Buddhist teachers have been among the most articulate of Dharma-communicators—and they remain an indelible feature of Western Buddhism as the practice matures here. The remarkable range of their teaching is showcased in this anthology. The pieces featured touch on the topics that are at the heart of our lives—relationships, uncertainty, love, parenting, food, stress, mortality, living fully, and social responsibility. These approachable, engaging teachings illuminate Buddhist concepts and practices, such as meditation, tonglen, lovingkindness, cultivating gratitude, and deep relaxation. The book contains wisdom from such well-known and respected contemporary Buddhist teachers as Pema Chödrön, Ayya Khema, Sharon Salzberg, Toni Packer, Maurine Stuart, Karen Maezen Miller, Khandro Rinpoche, Jan Chozen Bays, Sister Chan Khong, Sylvia Boorstein, Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Darlene Cohen, Joanna Macy, Bonnie Myotai Treace, Tsultrim Allione, Tenzin Palmo, Tara Brach, Joan Sutherland, Carolyn Rose Gimian, Joan Halifax, Charlotte Joko Beck, and many others.

Buddhism for Mothers
Buddhism for Mothers

Author: Sarah Napthali

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2010-06

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1458780236

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Become a calmer and happier mother with Buddhism for Mothers. 'This is an excellent, practical guide to everyday Buddhism not just for mothers, but for everyone who has ever had a mother. ' Vicki Mackenzie, author of the bestselling Why Buddhism Parenthood can be a time of great inner turmoil for a woman yet parenting books invariably focus on nurturing children rather than the mothers who struggle to raise them. This book is different. It is a book for mothers. Buddhism for Mothers explores the potential to be with your children in the all-important present moment; to gain the most joy out of being with them. How can this be done calmly and with a minimum of anger, worry and negative thinking? How can mothers negotiate the changed conditions of their relationships with partners, family and even with friends? Using Buddhist practices, Sarah Napthali offers ways of coping with the day-to-day challenges of motherhood. Ways that also allow space for the deeper reflections about who we are and what makes us happy. By acknowledging the sorrows as well as the joys of mothering Buddhism for Mothers can help you shift your perspective so that your mind actually helps you through your day rather than dragging you down. This is Buddhism at its most accessible, applied to the daily realities of ordinary parents. Even if exploring Buddhism at this busy stage of your life is not where you thought you'd be, it's well worthwhile reading this book. It can make a difference.

Buddha's Orphans
Buddha's Orphans

Author: Samrat Upadhyay

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2010-07-14

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 0547488408

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A novel of love and political upheaval, in which “Kathmandu is as specific and heartfelt as Joyce’s Dublin” (San Francisco Chronicle). In Buddha’s Orphans, Nepal’s political upheavals of the past century serve as a backdrop to the story of an orphan boy, Raja, and the girl he is fated to love, Nilu, a daughter of privilege. Their love scandalizes both of their families—and the novel takes readers across the globe and through several generations. This engrossing, unconventional love story explores the ways that events of the past, even those we are ignorant of, inevitably haunt the present. It is also a brilliant depiction of Nepali society from the Whiting Award–winning author of Arresting God in Kathmandu. “[Upadhyay is] a Buddhist Chekhov.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Upadhyay . . . [illuminates] the shadow corners of his characters’ psyches, as well as the complex social and political realities of life in Nepal, with equal grace.” —Elle “[Upadhyay’s] characters linger. They are captured with such concise, illuminating precision that one begins to feel that they just might be real.” —The Christian Science Monitor “Absorbing . . . Beautifully told.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Little Buddhas
Little Buddhas

Author: Vanessa R. Sasson

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 0199945616

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Edited by Vanessa R. Sasson, Little Buddhas brings together a wide range of scholarship and expertise to address the question of what role children have played in Buddhist literature, in particular historical contexts, and their role in specific Buddhist contexts today.

The First Free Women
The First Free Women

Author: Matty Weingast

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2020-02-11

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0834842688

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An Ancient Collection Reimagined Composed around the Buddha’s lifetime, the Therigatha (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”) contains the poems of the first Buddhist women: princesses and courtesans, tired wives of arranged marriages and the desperately in love, those born into limitless wealth and those born with nothing at all. The original authors of the Therigatha were women from every kind of background, but they all shared a deep-seated desire for awakening and liberation. In The First Free Women, Matty Weingast has reimagined this ancient collection and created a contemporary and radical adaptation that takes the essence of each poem and highlights the struggles and doubts, as well as the strength, perseverance, and profound compassion, embodied by these courageous women.

Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha
Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha

Author:

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2020-07-07

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1611808227

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A lyrical translation of an inspired selection of verses from the earliest Buddhist monks and nuns. More than two thousand years ago, the earliest disciples of the Buddha put into verse their experiences on the spiritual journey--from their daily struggles to their spiritual realizations. Over time the verses were collected to form the Theragatha and Therigatha, the "Verses of Elder Monks" and "Verses of Elder Nuns" respectively. In Songs of the Sons and Daughters of the Buddha, renowned poets Andrew Schelling and Anne Waldman have translated the most poignant poems in these collections, bringing forth the visceral, immediate qualities that are often lost in more scholarly renditions. These selections reveal the fears, loves, mishaps, expectations, and joys of the early monks and nuns, when, struck by wild insight, they cried out the anguish or solace they knew in their lives.

Daughters of Emptiness
Daughters of Emptiness

Author: Beata Grant

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-06-04

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0861718224

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Women played major roles in the history of Buddhist China, but given the paucity of the remaining records, their voices have all but faded. In Daughters of Emptiness, Beata Grant renders a great service by recovering and translating the enchanting verse - by turns assertive, observant, devout - of forty-eight nuns from sixteen centuries of imperial China. This selection of poems, along with the brief biographical accounts that accompany them, affords readers a glimpse into the extraordinary diversity and sometimes startling richness of these women's lives. A sample poem for this stunning collection: The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward, Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year. Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows, Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain. The sunlight is cold rather than gentle, Spreading over the four corners like a cloud. A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north, Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses. Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring, But Spring pays no attention to me at all. Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack, The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time. How should I not know, one who has left the world, And for whom floating clouds are already familiar? In the garden there grows a rosary-plum tree: Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure. - Chan Master Jingnuo