Download or read book Women in Buddhism written by Diana Y. Paul and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1985-04-23 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In seeking to explore the interrelationships between, and mutual influence of, varieties of sexual stereotypes and religious views of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, Women in Buddhism succeeds in drawing our attention to matters of philosophical importance. Paul examines the 'image' of women which arise in a number of Buddhist texts associated with Mahayana and finds that, while ideally the tradition purports to be egalitarian, in actual practice it often betrayed a strong misogynist prejudice. Sanskrit and Chinese texts are organized by theme and type, progressing from those which treat the traditionally orthodox and negative to those which set forth a positive consideration of soteriological paths for women. . . . In Women in Buddhism, Diana Paul may be forcing our consideration of the problem of female enlightenment. Thus the main purport and accomplishment of her scholarship is revolutionary."—Philosophy East and West

Download or read book Thai Women in Buddhism written by Thammananthā (Phiksunī) and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thai Women in Buddhism chronicles the history of these women and suggests broader possibilities for women's involvement.

Download or read book Buddhist Women and Social Justice written by Karma Lekshe Tsomo and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on engaged Buddhism focuses on women working for social justice in a wide range of Buddhist traditions and societies. Contributors document attempts to actualize Buddhism's liberating ideals of personal growth and social transformation. Dealing with issues such as human rights, gender-based violence, prostitution, and the role of Buddhist nuns, the work illuminates the possibilities for positive change that are available to those with limited power and resources. Integrating social realities and theoretical perspectives, the work utilizes feminist interpretations of Buddhist values and looks at culturally appropriate means of instigating change.

Download or read book I Hear Her Words written by Alice Collett and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there gender equality in Buddhist traditions? What do Buddhist texts say about women? This book tells the stories of many inspiring Buddhist women who overcame attempted constraint to gain liberation and become esteemed teachers. An ideal introduction to gender studies in Buddhism and the history of women in the tradition.

Download or read book Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia written by Garima Kaushik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the socio-cultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category—thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse—this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic members, etc. within Buddhism. The volume also investigates the individual experiences of the members, and their equations and relationships at different levels—with the Samgha at large, with their own respective Bhikşu or Bhikşunī Sangha, with the laity, and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data in order to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished. Bringing together archaeological, epigraphic, art historical, literary as well as ethnographic data, this volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Buddhism, gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, and South Asian studies.

Download or read book Buddhism After Patriarchy written by Rita M. Gross and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys both the part women have played in Buddhism historically and what Buddhism might become in its post-patriarchal future. The author completes the Buddhist historical record by discussing women, usually absent from histories of Buddhism, and she provides the first feminist analysis of the major concepts found in Buddhist religion. Gross demonstrates that the core teachings of Buddhism promote gender equity rather than male dominance, despite the often sexist practices found in Buddhist institutions throughout history.

Download or read book Women s Buddhism Buddhism s Women written by Ellison Banks Findly and published by . This book was released on 2000-06-15 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A diverse array of scholars, activists, and practitioners explores how women are bringing about the change in the forms, practices, and institutions of Buddhism.

Download or read book First Buddhist Women written by Susan Murcott and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2002-02-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Buddhist Women is a readable, contemporary translation of and commentary on the enlightenment verses of the first female disciples of the Buddha. The book explores Buddhism’s relatively liberal attitude towards women since its founding nearly 2,600 years ago, through the study of the Therigatham, the earliest know collection of women’s religious poetry. Through commentary and storytelling, author Susan Murcott traces the journey of the wives, mothers, teachers, courtesan, prostitutes, and wanderers who became leaders in the Buddhist community, roles that even today are rarely filled by women in other patriarchal religions. Their poetry beautifully expresses their search for spiritual attainment and their struggles in society.

Download or read book The First Free Women written by Matty Weingast and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Buddhist Women on the Edge written by Marianne Dresser and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 1996-08-22 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, priests--even a martial arts master and a private investigator--discuss 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.

Download or read book Women in Buddhist Traditions written by Karma Lekshe Tsomo and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history of Buddhism that highlights the insights and experiences of women from diverse communities and traditions around the world Buddhist traditions have developed over a period of twenty-five centuries in Asia, and recent decades have seen an unprecedented spread of Buddhism globally. From India to Japan, Sri Lanka to Russia, Buddhist traditions around the world have their own rich and diverse histories, cultures, religious lives, and roles for women. Wherever Buddhism has taken root, it has interacted with indigenous cultures and existing religious traditions. These traditions have inevitably influenced the ways in which Buddhist ideas and practices have been understood and adapted. Tracing the branches and fruits of these culturally specific transmissions and adaptations is as challenging as it is fascinating. Women in Buddhist Traditions chronicles pivotal moments in the story of Buddhist women, from the beginning of Buddhist history until today. The book highlights the unique contributions of Buddhist women from a variety of backgrounds and the strategies they have developed to challenge patriarchy in the process of creating an enlightened society. Women in Buddhist Traditions offers a groundbreaking and insightful introduction to the lives of Buddhist women worldwide.

Download or read book Poems of the First Buddhist Women written by and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Therīgāthā is one of the oldest surviving literatures by women, composed more than two millennia ago and originally collected as part of the Pali canon of Buddhist scripture. These poems were written by some of the first Buddhist women—therīs—honored for their religious achievements. Through imaginative verses about truth and freedom, the women recount their lives before ordination and their joy at attaining liberation from samsara. Poems of the First Buddhist Women offers startling insights into the experiences of women in ancient times that continue to resonate with modern readers. With a spare and elegant style, this powerful translation introduces us to a classic of world literature.

Download or read book Buddhist Feminisms and Femininities written by Karma Lekshe Tsomo and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silver Medalist, 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Religion (Eastern/Western) Category This groundbreaking book explores Buddhist thought and culture, from multiple Buddhist perspectives, as sources for feminist reflection and social action. Too often, when writers apply terms such as "woman," "femininity," and "feminism" to Buddhist texts and contexts, they begin with models of feminist thinking that foreground questions and concerns arising from Western experience. This oversight has led to many facile assumptions, denials, and oversimplifications that ignore women's diverse social and historical contexts. But now, with the tools of feminist analysis that have developed in recent decades, constructs of the feminine in Buddhist texts, imagery, and philosophy can be examined—with the acknowledgment that there are limitations to applying these theoretical paradigms to other cultures. Contributors to this volume offer a feminist analysis, which integrates gender theory and Buddhist perspectives, to Buddhist texts and women's narratives from Asia. How do Buddhist concepts of self and no-self intersect with concepts of gender identity, especially for women? How are the female body, sexuality, and femininity constructed (and contested) in diverse Buddhist contexts? How might power and gender identity be perceived differently through a Buddhist lens? By exploring feminist approaches and representations of "the feminine," including persistent questions about women's identities as householders and renunciants, this book helps us to understand how Buddhist influences on attitudes toward women, and how feminist thinking from other parts of the world, can inform and enlarge contemporary discussions of feminism.

Download or read book Women of the Way written by Sallie Tisdale and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-11-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking work, Sallie Tisdale traces women Buddhist masters and teachers across continents and centuries, drawing upon historical, cultural, and Buddhist records to bring to life these narratives of ancestral Buddhist women.

Download or read book Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha written by Kathryn R. Blackstone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed exploration of the quest for liberation on the part of the early bhikkunis. Only text in the Buddhist tradition of known female authorship. Important to anyone investigating women's own perspective on their religion. Also provides a clear statement about how renunciants understand nibbana.

Download or read book Becoming Guanyin written by Yuhang Li and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2024 Geiss-Hsu Book Prize for Best First Book, Society for Ming Studies The goddess Guanyin began in India as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, originally a male deity. He gradually became indigenized as a female deity in China over the span of nearly a millennium. By the Ming (1358–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, Guanyin had become the most popular female deity in China. In Becoming Guanyin, Yuhang Li examines how lay Buddhist women in late imperial China forged a connection with the subject of their devotion, arguing that women used their own bodies to echo that of Guanyin. Li focuses on the power of material things to enable women to access religious experience and transcendence. In particular, she examines how secular Buddhist women expressed mimetic devotion and pursued religious salvation through creative depictions of Guanyin in different media such as painting and embroidery and through bodily portrayals of the deity using jewelry and dance. These material displays expressed a worldview that differed from yet fit within the Confucian patriarchal system. Attending to the fabrication and use of “women’s things” by secular women, Li offers new insight into the relationships between worshipped and worshipper in Buddhist practice. Combining empirical research with theoretical insights from both art history and Buddhist studies, Becoming Guanyin is a field-changing analysis that reveals the interplay between material culture, religion, and their gendered transformations.

Download or read book Dakini Power written by Michaela Haas and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pema Chödrön, Joan Halifax, and ten other female Tibetan Buddhist teachers share inspiring personal stories, revealing how we can embody Buddhist wisdom and overcome everyday challenges What drives a young London librarian to board a ship to India, meditate in a remote cave by herself for twelve years, and then build a flourishing nunnery in the Himalayas? How does a surfer girl from Malibu become the head of the main international organization for Buddhist women? Why does the daughter of a music executive in Santa Monica dream so vividly of peacocks one night that she chases these images to Nepal, where she finds the love of her life in an unconventional young Tibetan master? The women featured in Dakini Power—contemporary teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, both Asians and Westerners, who teach in the West—have been universally recognized as accomplished practitioners and brilliant teachers whose life stories demonstrate their immense determination and bravery. Meeting them in this book, readers will be inspired to let go of old fears, explore new paths, and lead the lives they envision. Featured here are: Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche (This Precious Life) Dagmola Sakya (Princess in the Land of Snows) Jetsun Tenzin Palmo/Diane Perry (Into the Heart of Life) Pema Chödrön/Deirdre Blomfield-Brown (When Things Fall Apart; Start Where You Are) Khandro Tsering Chödron (late aunt of Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying) Thubten Chodron/Cherry Greene (Buddhism for Beginners; Taming the Mind) Karma Lekshe Tsomo/Patricia Zenn (Buddhism Through American Women ’s Eyes) Chagdud Khadro/Jane Dedman (P ’howa Commentary; Life in Relation to Death) Sangye Khandro/Nanci Gay Gustafson (Meditation, Transformation, and Dream Yoga) Roshi Joan Halifax (Being with Dying) Lama Tsultrim Allione/Joan Rousmanière Ewing (Women of Wisdom; Feeding Your Demons) Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel (The Power of an Open Question)