Authors: Marianne Dresser
ISBN-13: 9781556432033, ISBN-10: 1556432038
Format: Paperback
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Date Published: August 1996
Edition: (Non-applicable)
As Buddhism is assimilated into the West, it is imperative that women reshape its patriarchal structures and carve out a fully legitimate, empowering position for themselves. Marianne Dresser brings together the likes of Pema Chodron, Tsultrim Allione, and bell hooks, 30 women in all, who are doing just that. Writers, nuns, scholars, priestseven a martial arts master and a private investigatordiscuss women in Buddhism in a range of essays. Several pieces question the suppression of emotion required for selflessness, appealing to the undeniable reality of day-to-day living. Others discuss their experiences as women in Buddhism, whether as nuns or as lay practitioners. Still others address the history of women in Buddhism, racial questions, meditation, poetry, compassion, social activism, and sexual orientation. Most of these writers have been in Buddhism for two or three decades and offer a wealth of experience and insights, targeted at women readers but no less valuable to men.
Editor's Introduction | ||
Wild, Wise, Passionate: Dakinis in America | 3 | |
Form, Emptiness; Emptiness, Form | 13 | |
Sounds of Silence | 19 | |
Persons and Possibilities | 39 | |
What Is the Emotional Life of a Buddha? | 45 | |
The Light of Outrage: Women, Anger, and Buddhist Practice | 51 | |
Bowing, Not Scraping | 57 | |
Unlearning Silence: A Further Feminist Revaluation of Buddhist Practice | 69 | |
Buddhism and Race: An African American Baptist-Buddhist Perspective | 81 | |
Outside In: Buddhism in America | 93 | |
The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism | 105 | |
Walking a Few Steps Farther | 117 | |
The Ruthlessness of the Practice of Compassion | 125 | |
Community, Work, Relationship, and Family: Renunciation and Balance in American Buddhist Practice | 133 | |
Romantic Vision, Everyday Disappoinment | 151 | |
My Tantric Flip-Flop | 159 | |
Watering the Garden with My Eyes Closed | 163 | |
A Short History of Buddhists at The Tracks | 171 | |
Frontier Buddhism | 179 | |
Not To Injure Life: A Visit with Ruth Denison | 199 | |
Suzuki Sensei's Zen Spirit | 209 | |
Coming Home | 217 | |
You're Becoming a What? Living as a Western Buddhist Nun | 223 | |
Fertile Ground for a Warrior | 235 | |
The Dark Clue | 243 | |
Wholeheartedness | 257 | |
Poetry as Siddhi | 263 | |
The Province of the Saved | 277 | |
Contemplation and Transformation | 287 | |
No Right, No Wrong | 293 | |
Glossary | 305 | |
Selected Bibliography | 309 | |
About the Contributors | 315 |