Wendy Garling

Wendy Garling

Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications), a groundbreaking new biography of the Buddha that relates his journey to awakening through the stories of Buddhism’s first women. For many years Wendy has taught women’s spirituality focusing on Buddhist traditions, while also pursuing original research into women’s stories from ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature. As a freelance writer and editor, Wendy was on the editorial team at the Boston Women's Health Collective for the 2005 edition of Our Bodies Ourselves and several subsequent BWHC publications. She also wrote business articles for The Palladium Group, published through Harvard Business Publishing.

A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Wendy has studied with teachers of different schools and lineages, foremost her refuge lama His Holiness the 16th Karmapa (who gave her the name Karma Dhonden Lhamo), her kind root lama, the late Sera Je Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama whom she first met in 1979. From 1991-92 she coordinated the Georgia chapter of the International Year of Tibet, helping to bring many Tibetan cultural and religious events to Atlanta and Emory University. Pilgrimage has played an important role in Wendy’s life: in 2007 she journeyed to the sites of women saints in Tibet, and in 2012 and 2018 to sacred sites of the Buddha in India. Her dream is to bring back the stories of Buddhism’s first women, reawaken their voices, and ensure that they are not just remembered, but valorized as integral to the roots of Buddhism. Wendy lives in Concord, Massachusetts and can be reached at [email protected].

Wendy Garling

Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications), a groundbreaking new biography of the Buddha that relates his journey to awakening through the stories of Buddhism’s first women. For many years Wendy has taught women’s spirituality focusing on Buddhist traditions, while also pursuing original research into women’s stories from ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature. As a freelance writer and editor, Wendy was on the editorial team at the Boston Women's Health Collective for the 2005 edition of Our Bodies Ourselves and several subsequent BWHC publications. She also wrote business articles for The Palladium Group, published through Harvard Business Publishing.

A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Wendy has studied with teachers of different schools and lineages, foremost her refuge lama His Holiness the 16th Karmapa (who gave her the name Karma Dhonden Lhamo), her kind root lama, the late Sera Je Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama whom she first met in 1979. From 1991-92 she coordinated the Georgia chapter of the International Year of Tibet, helping to bring many Tibetan cultural and religious events to Atlanta and Emory University. Pilgrimage has played an important role in Wendy’s life: in 2007 she journeyed to the sites of women saints in Tibet, and in 2012 and 2018 to sacred sites of the Buddha in India. Her dream is to bring back the stories of Buddhism’s first women, reawaken their voices, and ensure that they are not just remembered, but valorized as integral to the roots of Buddhism. Wendy lives in Concord, Massachusetts and can be reached at [email protected].

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GUIDES

Women in Buddhism

Women in Buddhism

Throughout history women have played a vital role in the preservation and presentation of Buddhism. The Buddha himself expressed deep respect for his mother and as several contemporary Buddhist scholars have pointed out, women have played a significant role in helping to shape and preserve Buddhism. That is certainly true for Buddhism in today's world.

Today, contemporary Buddhism is largely shaped by a number of women who play vital roles from translation to teaching, to holding highly influential seats in Buddhist sanghas around the world. We are happy to publish a wide range of Buddhist authors from diverse traditions. This guide is certainly not complete in the sense of presenting each and every example of women in Buddhism today, but hopefully it will give readers a place to begin learning from and celebrating the many women who make Buddhism possible today.

Recent and Upcoming Releases

$24.95 - Paperback

Lifting as They Climb
Black Women Buddhists and Collective Liberation

By Toni Pressley-Sanon

The lives and writings of six leading Black Buddhist women—Jan Willis, bell hooks, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, angel Kyodo williams, Spring Washam, and Faith Adiele—reveal new expressions of Buddhism rooted in ancestry, love, and collective liberation.

Lifting as They Climb is a love letter of freedom and self-expression from six Black women Buddhist teachers, conveyed through the voice of author Toni Pressley-Sanon, one of the innumerable people who have benefitted from their wisdom. She explores their remarkable lives and undertakes deep readings of their work, weaving them into the broader tapestry of the African diaspora and the historical struggle for Black liberation.

Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanon is an associate professor in the Department of Africology & African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University, having previously held positions at the University of Buffalo and Pennsylvania State University. Her work dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and culture in both Africa and the African diaspora. She is the author of four books and numerous journal articles and book chapters on these subjects. Toni has practiced Buddhist meditation and mindfulness for the past ten years.

Available 05/21/2024

$26.95 - Paperback

A Dakini's Counsel
Sera Khandro's Spiritual Advice and Dzogchen Instructions

By Sera Khandro
Translated by Christina Monson

Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje was a modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher who single-pointedly pursued a life of Dharma while balancing family life and public teaching. This collection of her advice, prayers, dreams, prophecies, and treasures (terma) is both biographical and instructional. It comes from within the tradition of Dzogchen, replete with practices for resting in the nature of mind. This lineage forms the bedrock of Christina Monson’s own spiritual path, lending a deep intimacy to the translations, which serve as a window into Sera Khandro’s life, teachings, and rich inner experience.

Sera Khandro (1892–1940) was one of the most prolific Tibetan female authors of the past several centuries. At the age of fifteen, she left her home in Lhasa for eastern Tibet, embarking on a lifetime devoted to her spiritual path—she became a spiritual master, a revealer of ancient hidden teachings, a mystic, a visionary, a writer, a mother, and a vagabond. Her written works and spiritual lineage have been preserved and are now cherished worldwide.

Christina Monson (1969–2023) was a Buddhist practitioner and teacher and Tibetan language translator and interpreter. She had over thirty years of study, translation, and practice experience in Buddhism beginning with an interest in Asian philosophy as an undergraduate student at Brown University.

embodying tara

$22.95 - Paperback

Embodying Tara
Twenty-One Manifestations to Awaken Your Innate Wisdom

By Chandra Easton

Tara, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, can manifest within all of us. In this illustrated introduction to Tara's twenty-one forms, respected female Buddhist teacher and practitioner Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton shows you how to invite Tara’s awakened energy to come alive in yourself through:

  • insight into core Buddhist concepts and teachings;
  • meditations;
  • mantra recitations; and
  • journal exercises.

The relatable stories from Buddhist history and the author’s personal reflections will give you the tools to live a more compassionate life, befriend your fears, and overcome everyday challenges.

Chandra Easton is a Dharma teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She has taught Buddhism and Hatha Yoga since 2001. In 2015, she was given the title of Vajra Teacher, Dorje Lopön, for Tara Mandala Retreat Center by Lama Tsultrim Allione and H. E. Gochen Sang Ngag Rinpoche. Lopön Chandra studied Buddhism and Tibetan language in Dharamsala, India, and at UCSB’s religious studies department. During her studies, she cotranslated with her mentor, B. Alan Wallace, Sublime Dharma: A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection (Vimala Publishing, 2012).

$21.95 - Paperback

The Buddhist and the Ethicist
Conversations on Effective Altruism, Engaged Buddhism, and How to Build a Better World

By Peter Singer
By Shih Chao-Hwei

An unlikely duo—Professor Peter Singer, a preeminent philosopher and professor of bioethics, and Venerable Shih Chao-Hwei, a Taiwanese Buddhist monastic and social activist—join forces to talk ethics in lively conversations that cross oceans, overcome language barriers, and bridge philosophies. The eye-opening dialogues collected here share unique perspectives on contemporary issues like animal welfare, gender equality, the death penalty, and more. Together, these two deep thinkers explore the foundation of ethics and key Buddhist concepts, and ultimately reveal how we can all move toward making the world a better place.

Shih Chao-Hwei is a Buddhist monastic, social activist, scholar, and recent winner of the Niwano Peace Prize. A leading advocate for animal rights, a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage, and a key figure in the Buddhist gender equality movement, she is also a professor at Hsuan Chuang University and the founder of Hong Shih Buddhist College.
Peter Singer, the “father of the modern animal welfare movement,” was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. An Australian philosopher and professor of bioethics, he has contributed to more than 50 books in over 30 languages. Singer is founder of The Life You Can Save nonprofit and a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.
ShangpaV2

$49.95 - Hardcover

Shangpa Kagyu: The Tradition of Khyungpo Naljor, Part Two
Essential Teachings of the Eight Practice Lineages of Tibet, Volume 12 (The Treasury of Precious Instructions)

By Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye
Translated by Sarah Harding

This is the second of two volumes that present teachings and practices from the Shangpa Kagyu practice lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This tradition derives from two Indian yoginīs, the dākinīs Niguma and Sukhasiddhi, and their disciple, the eleventh-century Tibetan yogi Khyungpo Naljor Tsultrim Gönpo of the Shang region of Tibet. There are forty texts in this volume, beginning with Jonang Tāranātha’s classic commentary and its supplement expounding the Six Dharmas of Niguma. It includes the definitive collection of the tantric bases of the Shangpa Kagyu—the five principal deities of the new translation (sarma) traditions and the Five-Deity Cakrasamvara practice. The source scriptures, liturgies, supplications, empowerment texts, instructions, and practice manuals were composed by Tangtong Gyalpo, Tāranātha, Jamgön Kongtrul, and others.

The first part of this series is also available now.

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye (1813–1900) was a versatile and prolific scholar and one of the most outstanding writers and teachers of his time in Tibet. He was a pivotal figure in eastern Tibet’s nonsectarian movement and made major contributions to education, politics, and medicine.
Sarah Harding has been a Buddhist practitioner since 1974 and has been teaching and translating since completing a three year retreat in 1980 under the guidance of Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche. Her publications include Zhije and Chöd, respectively the thirteenth and fourteenth volumes of The Treasury of Precious Instructions series. She was an associate professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, starting in 1992, and has been a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation since 2000.

Women in Buddhist Research & Academia

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha
The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati

By Wendy Garling

Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. In this first full biography of Mahaprajapati, Wendy Garling presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.

$18.95 - Paperback

Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications), a groundbreaking new biography of the Buddha that relates his journey to awakening through the stories of Buddhism’s first women.

Illumination
A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method

By Rebecca Li

A modern guide to the transformative practice of silent illumination from Chan Buddhist teacher Rebecca Li.

Silent illumination, a way of penetrating the mind through curious inquiry, is an especially potent, accessible, and portable meditation practice perfectly suited for a time when there is so much fear, upheaval, and sorrow in our world. It is a method of reconnecting with our true nature, which encompasses all that exists and where suffering cannot touch us.

$21.95 - Paperback

Rebecca Li, PhD, is a meditation and Dharma teacher in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. She gives Dharma talks and leads Chan retreats in North America and Europe. She is also a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey. Her talks, writings, and schedule can be found at rebeccali.org.

Tales of a Mad Yogi
The Life and Wild Wisdom of Dukpa Kunley

By Elizabeth L Monson

The fifteenth-century Himalayan saint Drukpa Kunley is a beloved figure throughout Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal, known both for his profound mastery of Buddhist practice as well as his highly unconventional and often humorous behavior. Ever the proverbial trickster and “crazy wisdom” yogi, his outward appearance and conduct of carousing, philandering, and breaking social norms is understood to be a means to rouse ordinary people out of habitual ways of thinking that leads them toward spiritual awakening.

Elizabeth Monson has spent decades traveling throughout the Himalayas, retracing Drukpa Kunley’s steps and translating his works. In this creative telling, she has reimagined his life based on historical accounts, autobiographical sketches, folktales, and first-hand ethnographic research. The result, with flourishes of magical encounters and references to his superhuman capacities, is a poignant narrative of Kunley’s life, revealing to the reader the quintessential example of the capacity of Buddhism to skillfully bring people to liberation.

$19.95 - Paperback

Elizabeth Monson, PhD, is the spiritual codirector of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the managing teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge. She is a Dharma teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, has lectured at the Harvard Divinity School, and teaches meditation throughout New England.

living theravadaLiving Theravada
Demystifying the People, Places, and Practices of a Buddhist Tradition

By Brooke Schedneck

An illuminating introduction to the contemporary world of Theravada Buddhism and its rich culture and practices in modern mainland Southeast Asia.

Theravada translates as “the way of the Elders,” indicating that this Buddhist tradition considers itself to be the most authoritative and pure. Tracing all the way back to the time of the Buddha, Theravada Buddhism is distinguished by canonical literature preserved in the Pali language, beliefs, and practices—and this literature is often specialized and academic in tone. By contrast, this book will serve as a foundational and accessible resource on Theravada Buddhism and the contemporary, lived world of its enduring tradition.

$24.95 - Paperback

Brooke Schedneck, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of religious studies at Rhodes College. Her work focuses on contemporary Buddhism in Thailand, and she spent years teaching and conducting research in Chiang Mai. She has presented her research internationally, and her work has been featured in academic journals and publications such as TricycleAeon, and The Conversation.

An inspiring and intimate tale set against the turmoil of recent Tibetan history, Inseparable across Lifetimes offers for the first time the translations of love letters between two modern Buddhist visionaries. The letters are poetic, affectionate, and prophetic, articulating a hopeful vision of renewal that drew on their past lives together and led to their twenty-year partnership. This couple played a significant role in restoring Buddhism in the region of Golok once China’s revolutionary fervor gave way to reform. Holly Gayley, who was given their correspondence by Namtrul Rinpoche himself, has translated their lives and letters in order to share their remarkable story with the world.

$24.95 - Paperback

Holly Gayley, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies, is a scholar and translator of contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet. She is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet, co-editor of A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rime Masters of Tibet, and translator of Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo.

Black and Buddhist
What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom

Edited by Cheryl A. Giles and Pamela Ayo Yetunde

Leading African American Buddhist teachers offer lessons on racism, resilience, spiritual freedom, and the possibility of a truly representative American Buddhism.

What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? In this powerful collection of writings, African American teachers from all the major Buddhist traditions tell their stories of how race and Buddhist practice have intersected in their lives. The resulting explorations display not only the promise of Buddhist teachings to empower those facing racial discrimination but also the way that Black Buddhist voices are enriching the Dharma for all practitioners. As the first anthology comprised solely of writings by African-descended Buddhist practitioners, this book is an important contribution to the development of the Dharma in the West.

With contributions by Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Cheryl A. Giles, Gyōzan Royce Andrew Johnson, Ruth King, Kamilah Majied, Lama Rod Owens, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Sebene Selassie, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde.

$19.95 - Paperback

Cheryl A. Giles, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Harvard Divinity School. Giles is the author of several articles and co-editor of The Arts of Contemplative Care (Wisdom, 2012).
Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., Th.D. is a Community Dharma Leader in the Insight Meditation tradition. She teaches pastoral care and counseling and has taught at University of the West, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and Upaya Institute and Zen Center. Ayo has written for BuddhadharmaLion’s RoarReligions, and Buddhist-Christian Studies. She is the author of Object Relations, Buddhism and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care.

Red Tara
The Female Buddha of Power and Magnetism

By Rachael Stevens

Tara is one of the most celebrated goddesses in the Buddhist world, representing enlightened activity in the form of the divine feminine. She protects, nurtures, and helps practitioners on the path to enlightenment. Manifesting in many forms and in many colors to help beings, Tara’s red form represents her powers of magnetization, subjugation, and the transformation of desire into enlightened activity. She is considered to be particularly powerful in times of plague and disharmony.

This comprehensive overview focuses on the origins, forms, and practices of Tara, providing the reader with insightful information and inspirations relating to the goddess. Its second part focuses on Red Tara, a powerful and liberating form of Tara that is particularly important to connect with in a time of crisis. These chapters cover various forms of Red Tara found throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world, the particular qualities she represents, and how through prayers and meditation we can embody her principles and truly benefit beings.

$29.95 - Paperback

Rachael Stevens holds a doctorate from Oxford University, is an early education teacher, and is a long-term Buddhist practitioner. Rachael’s research focuses on Red Tara, and she has studied and practiced with Buddhist communities in Europe, Asia, North America, and Brazil.

Dakini's Warm Breath
The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism

by Judith Simmer-Brown

The primary emblem of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism is the dakini, or "sky-dancer," a semi-wrathful spirit-woman who manifests in visions, dreams, and meditation experiences. Western scholars and interpreters of the dakini, influenced by Jungian psychology and feminist goddess theology, have shaped a contemporary critique of Tibetan Buddhism in which the dakini is seen as a psychological "shadow," a feminine savior, or an objectified product of patriarchal fantasy. According to Judith Simmer-Brown—who writes from the point of view of an experienced practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism—such interpretations are inadequate.

$39.95 - Paperback

Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the religious studies department at Naropa University (formerly the Naropa Institute), where she has taught since 1978. She has authored numerous articles on Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and Buddhism in America. She is an Acharya (senior teacher) in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. A practicing Buddhist since 1971, she lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Art of ListeningThe Art of Listening
A Guide to the Early Teachings of Buddhism

by Sarah Shaw

The Dīghanikāya or Long Discourses of the Buddha is one of the four major collections of teachings from the early period of Buddhism. Its thirty-four suttas (in Sanskrit, sutras) demonstrate remarkable breadth in both content and style, forming a comprehensive collection. The Art of Listening gives an introduction to the Dīghanikāya and demonstrates the historical, cultural, and spiritual insights that emerge when we view the Buddhist suttas as oral literature.

Each sutta of the Dīghanikāya is a paced, rhythmic composition that evolved and passed intergenerationally through chanting. For hundreds of years, these timeless teachings were never written down. Examining twelve suttas of the Dīghanikāya, scholar Sarah Shaw combines a literary approach and a personal one, based on her experiences carefully studying, hearing, and chanting the texts. At once sophisticated and companionable, The Art of Listening will introduce you to the diversity and beauty of the early Buddhist suttas.

$18.95 - Paperback

Sarah Shaw is a faculty member and lecturer at the University of Oxford. She has published numerous works on the history and practices of Buddhism, including Mindfulness and The Art of Listening.

Women in Tibetan Buddhism

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was raised in London and became a Buddhist while still in her teens. At the age of twenty she traveled to India, becoming one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. The international bestseller Cave in the Snow chronicles her twelve years of seclusion in a remote cave. Deeply concerned with the plight of Buddhist nuns, she established Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India. In 2008 His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, gave her the rare title of Jetsunma (Venerable Master).
reflections mt lake cover

$21.95 - Paperback

Khandro RinpocheKhandro Rinpoche - Born in India in 1967, Khandro Rinpoche is the daughter of Tibetan meditation master His Holiness Mindrolling Trichen and is herself a renowned teacher in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. She is the head of a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in India and divides her time between teaching in the West, running the nunnery, and supporting charity projects for Tibetan refugees in India.

$22.95 - Paperback

Pema Chödron served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for Western monks and nuns. She currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She is interested in helping to establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with Western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings.

$24.95 - Hardcover

Thubten Chodron - Ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun in 1977, Venerable Thubten Chodron is an author, teacher, and the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey. Sravasti Abbey is the only Tibetan Buddhist training monastery for Westerners in the US and holds gender equality, social engagement, and care for the environment amongst its core values. Ven. Chodron teaches worldwide and is known for her practical (and humorous!) explanations of how to apply Buddhist teachings in daily life.

$19.95 - Paperback

Lama Tsultrim Allione is an author, internationally known Buddhist teacher, and the founder and resident lama of Tara Mandala Retreat Center. She is the author of Women of Wisdom, the national best-seller Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, which has been translated into seventeen languages, and Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine.

$29.95 - Paperback

Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel has studied and practiced Mahayana Buddhism, as well as the Vajrayana tradition of the Longchen Nyingthik, for over 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She has been intimately involved with Rinpoche’s work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West, in particular the development of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the Longchen Nyingthik lineage.
The Logic of Faith

$16.95 - Paperback

Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor and a former Chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University. She is also a cofounding director of the Dawn Mountain Tibetan Temple, Community Center, and Research Institute. Her publications include Path to the Middle (SUNY Press), Unbounded Wholeness, coauthored with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (Oxford University Press), and Knowledge and Liberation (Snow Lion Publications).

$29.95 - Paperback

Sangye Khandro is an American woman who studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan language with Tibetan masters in India and Nepal. She has studied and translated many important Tibetan Buddhist texts. She is a cofounder of Light of Berotsana, a nonprofit organization for translators of Tibetan texts.
Essence of Clear Light

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Carolyn Rose Gimian is a teacher of meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism, as well as a writer, book editor, and archivist. She edited Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior in close cooperation with Chögyam Trungpa. After his death, she compiled and edited two additional books of his Shambhala teachings: Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala and Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery. She is also the editor of the ten-volume Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action, and many other volumes of his work.
Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Women in the Zen Tradition

"By being keen observers of our planet, we are more connected to the world around us and in a better position to prevent harm and improve the health of the earth."
Stephanie Kaza, Mindfully Green

Joanna Macy, PhD, teacher and author, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Macy has created a groundbreaking framework for personal and social change that brings a new way of seeing the world as our larger body. Her many books include World as Lover, World as SelfWidening Circles, A MemoirActive Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy; and Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects.

$27.95 - Paperback

Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. A leading voice in Buddhism and ecology, her most recent book is Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times.

$18.95 - Paperback

Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Zen priest and anthropologist who has served on the faculty of Columbia University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. For the past thirty years she has worked with dying people and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, and many other academic institutions. In 1990, she founded Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist study and social action center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1994, she founded the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of healthcare professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.

$27.95 - MixedMedia

Natalie Goldbergis the author of fifteen books. Writing Down the Bones, her first, has been translated into nineteen languages. Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku is her latest book. For the last forty years she has practiced Zen and taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice. She lives in northern New Mexico.
Writing Down the Bones

$16.95 - Paperback

Paula Arai was raised in Detroit by a Japanese mother and did Zen training in Japan. She obtained her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University in 1993 and is now the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s RitualsWomen Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns, and Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra.
little book of zen cover

$19.95 - Hardcover

Jan Chozen Bays, MD, is an ordained Zen teacher and a pediatrician who specializes in the evaluation of children for abuse and neglect. She has trained in Zen for forty-five years with Roshis Taizan Maezumi and Shodo Harada. With her husband she serves as co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery, a residential center for intensive Zen training in Oregon.
Mindful Eating Left

$16.95 - Paperback

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is an author, poet, and ordained Zen Buddhist priest. She is the author of Deepest PeaceSanctuaryThe Way of TendernessTell Me Something About Buddhism, and Black Angel Cards: 36 Oracles and Messages for Divining Your Life. She compiled and edited Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart by Zenkei Blanche Hartmann and is a contributing author in Dharma, Color, Culture and The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women.

$18.95 - Paperback

Laura Burges(Ryuko Eitai) is a lay entrusted Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. She lectures, offers classes, and leads retreats at the San Francisco Zen Center and at other practice places in Northern California. She is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. Laura taught children for 35 years and now mentors other teachers.
Zen Way of Recovery

$21.95 - Paperback

Susan Moon is a writer, editor, and Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. For many years she has taught and led Zen retreats nationally and internationally. Her books include This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity; the groundbreaking collection, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Caplow; and What Is Zen? with Norman Fischer.
alive dead

$17.95 - Paperback

Women in the Insight and Theravada Tradition

Ven. Ayya Khema was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923 and escaped the Nazi regime in 1938. She was ordained a Theravadin Buddhist nun in 1979 and established a forest monastery near Sidney, Australia; a training center for nuns in Colombo, Sri Lanka; and, later, Buddha-Haus, a meditation center in the Allgäu, Germany. Among her books are When the Iron Eagle FliesBeing Nobody, Going NowhereWho Is My Self?; and an autobiography, I Give You My Life. She passed away in 1997.
Path to Peace

$18.95 - Paperback

Sharon Salzberg is one of America's leading spiritual teachers and authors. A practitioner of Buddhist meditation for over thirty years, she is a co-founder of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Insight Meditation Society, and she directs meditation retreats throughout the United States and abroad.

Lovingkindness

$16.95 - Paperback

Christina Feldman - In the early 1970s, Christina Feldman spent several years in Asia, studying and training in the Buddhist meditation tradition. She has led insight meditation retreats in the West since 1974. A cofounder of Gaia House, in Devon, England, she is a regular teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California. In addition, she leads retreats in Europe.
Boundless Heart The Buddha’s Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity By Christina Feldman

$16.95 - Paperback

Additional Resources on Women in Buddhism

Sera Khandro: A Reader’s Guide

Sera Khandro (1892 - 1940), also known as Kunzang Dekyong Wagmo,  was one of the great masters of the early 20th century and the English speaking world is fortunate now that both her story and her writings have been emerging more and more over the past few years. Her story is at once fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, in his remarkable Incarnation: The History and Mysticism of the Tulku Tradition of Tibet gives a superb overview: "This...

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Mandarava Reader’s Guide

This series of blog posts are meant to be resources guides to complement the biographies of the great masters and scholars on the Treasury of Lives site. Mandarava Mandarava Mandarava was one of the great 8th century adepts and was one of the main consorts of Guru Rinpoche. As such a central figure at the time of Guru Rinpoche, she is a focus of many works. A wonderful complete biography was published by our friends at Wisdom Publications as The...

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On Translation: Sarah Harding and Larry MermelsteinIn our second On Translation video series cosponsored with the Tsadra Foundation, we are pleased to share this recording of Sarah Harding (Naropa University and the Tsadra Foundation) & Larry Mermelstein (Nalanda Translation Committee).   This session is for any student, practitioner, or translator of Tibetan Buddhism and is an opportunity to enter the world of translators of the Buddhadharma with two of the most experienced Tibetan translators. Most people encounter the Buddhist teachings through translations of texts, so like...

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The Pali Tradition in 2021: The Essential Books on Theravada & Insight Meditation

Receive a 30% discount on these titles through January 2nd using code 2021YE at checkout

We are very happy to share with you a look back at our 2021 books for those who practice in the family of traditions and communities based on the Pali text tradition including traditional Theravada as well as Insight Meditation.  Over the last few years, we have really focused on bringing to light the diversity of traditional Theravada along with the great books from the Insight meditation community of authors and scholars, many of which you will find below.

 

But before we get started, we wanted to draw your attention to a recent Guide for Readers to some of our works on traditional Theravada.  The twelve books profiled here are meant to give a sense of the breadth, diversity and richness of the Theravada tradition and we think many will surprise you.

The most recent book is Sara Shaw's The Art of Listening: A Guide to the Early Teachings of Buddhism which explores the Dīghanikāya or Long Discourses of the Buddha.

We think of a “canon” as a collection of books, but in this captivating and illuminating work Shaw emphasizes the oral quality of this collection and brings us along to imagine how very different experiencing these teachings are when listening to them. There is a lot at stake here.  Reading is often a passive endeavor, yet listening to these texts, as Shaw explains, these essential texts:

"must also have been regarded as something more interactive: you would listen, perhaps investigate the content (and yourself), and then allow your mind to move on to the next stage of the text. Each text is a paced, rhythmic composition, a choreographed movement in time, that works in a different way from something you read alone with book or iPad in hand. So, with these texts, you start to feel the Buddhist principles of rising, sustaining, and falling—with circling rhythms repeating in “real” time—in the very structure of the words. If you hear the texts as recitals in a temple, you look, listen, and attend; you are conscious of those around you, how you are sitting, and the environment. You are open to the text in a different way. Much of Buddhist meditation and ethical teaching is based on this underlying delivery of the text itself by living people to those who have met, perhaps, just to listen."

Watch the book trailer for The Art of Listening.

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati is the first full biography of Mahaprajapati.  Here, Wendy Garling presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.

In Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia Dr. Kate Crosby of Kings College, London, presents her groundbreaking research which has created an enormous buzz in the Theravada community of scholars and practitioners.  Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has in fact undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system is harder to find now, but it still exits in pockets.  Known as borān kammaṭṭhāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammaṭṭhāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

Watch the book trailer for Esoteric Theravada.

Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition is a very engaging and provocative essay collection that explores the opposing ideas that often define Buddhist communities—secular versus religious, modern versus traditional, Western versus Eastern—are unpacked and critically examined.  Those focused on the Pali tradition include contributions from:

  • Bhikku Bodhi: Manifesting the Buddha Dharma in a Secular Age
  • Kate Crosby: The Shared Origins of Traditionalism and Secularism in Theravāda Buddhism
  • Gil Fronsdal: Naturalistic Buddhism
  • Sarah Shaw: Has Secularism Become a Religion? Some Observations on Pāli Buddhism’s Movement to the International Stage

Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom includes several contributions from Insight Meditation teachers and practitioners like:

  • Cheryl A. Giles: They Say People Could Fly: Disrupting the Legacy of Sexual Violence through Myth, Memory, and Connection
  • Pamela Ayo Yetunde: Voluntary Segregation: The Paradox, Promise, and Peril of People of Color Sanghas
  • Ruth King: Wholeness is No Trifling Matter: Race, Faith, and Refuge
  • Sebene Selassie: Turning Towards Myself

In Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World, Insight Meditation teacher Kate Johnson makes a powerful case for friendship as a radical practice of love, courage and trust, and a path that paves the way for profound social change.

We released a new edition of the highly acclaimed The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired by the Early Buddhist Nuns by Matty Weingast.  For those with the first edition, the poems are the same, just the subtitle clarifies that these represent a creative approach to the Therigatha and the introductions also flesh out the process of how these were rendered a bit more.  As Dr. Sarah Shaw of the University of Oxford describes this book in a recent review of the work in an academic journal,

These are explorations around the nuns' verses. They meld together commentarial backstories and the verses themselves with the lived experience and imaginative excursions of the author. Impressively, the author, Weingast, stayed at the Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery in California for four months, compiling his work based on his own meditation, reading,  and  consultation  with  nuns  and  guests.  Bhikkhuni  Anandabodhi,  in  particular,  encouraged  his  interest  in  the  project from the outset. Her introduction gives a moving and gracefully eloquent account of the impact of the poems from a  modern  nun’s  perspective.  Artistic  work  based  upon  such  “research,”  both  internal  and  external,  is  an  arresting  idea:  it demonstrates the continued creativity that Buddhism has historically fostered and developed.

In Xuanzang: China’s Legendary Pilgrim and Translatorfrom our Lives of the Masters series (also see the volume on S.N. Goenka), Ben Brose brings one of the most fascinating figures in the history of Buddhism to light.  While Xuanzang himself is known for his Mahayana works, he brought to light most of what we know about Buddhism in India in the 7th century, including the  interplay between contemporary monks from the Mahayana and Sravakayana traditions.

For Kids

In 2021 we published three wonderful books parents who want to expose their kids to the ideas and culture, and figures of this Buddhist tradition will delight in.

Forthcoming in 2022

And we have even more from the Pali tradition coming out next year from the likes of Buddhadasa, Ayya Khema, Paul Dennison, L.S. Cousins, and many more.  So make sure you sign up for our emails so you do not miss them!  Here is a sneak peek at January's release which you can pre-order now and take advantage of the discount.

Seeing the Eye of Dhamma: The Comprehensive Teaching of Buddhadasa Bhikku

We are very excited about the release of this astonishingly comprehensive book by Buddhadasa, one of the most important Buddhist figures in Southeast Asia of the 20th century.   This is the most complete work of his ever, based around the the theme of "life as cultivation of mind".  The focus is on practice, but the emphasis is not so much on breathing mindfulness and other mediation techniques.  Rather, as Santikaro Upasaka relates in his preface, "he is concerned with the practice of inquiry and contemplation more broadly, in its multiplicity of forms within the activity of quotidian life".

The Dalai Lama on Buddhadasa Bhikku

Buddhist Audiobooks

Shunryu Suzuki Audiobooks on and by Suzuki Roshi

Crooked Cucumber
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The Return of the Buddha in Mahaprajapati’s Life

Reunion of Mother and Son

Art of The Woman Who Raised the Buddha

The following is an excerpt from

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha

By Wendy Garling
Foreword by H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha

$18.95 - Paperback

By: Wendy Garling

Just as Mahaprajapati’s life was upended when Maya died, it was about to happen all over again. Twelve years had passed since Siddhartha left home. For him, those years were momentous indeed: he became a fully enlightened buddha, began to teach the dharma, and garnered a vast following of monks and laypeople as his emerging ministry took root (the order of nuns had not yet been established). In contrast, his family back home in Kapilavastu languished in a cloud of sadness: Suddhodana was still without an heir; Yasodhara was in limbo as a wife without a husband; Rahula had never known his father; and Mahaprajapati bided her days in heartache waiting for her son to come home. While Siddhartha’s family did not understand his reasons for leaving, they remembered his promise to return. Mahaprajapati would probably have been in her sixties when this finally took place.*

The Buddha Returns to Kapilavastu

Word reaches Kapilavastu that their prodigal son has become a famous saint, teaching a new doctrine of truth called dharma throughout the regions of Magadha in India to the south and west of the Sakya kingdom. Suddhodana hears the news with delight and anticipation. He misses his son very much and determines that if Siddhartha is spreading good will in distant lands, it is high time he come home to share some of that beneficence with his family. The king dispatches the family confidante, Kalodayin, to relay his wishes:

Say respectfully to Siddhartha: You formerly promised to come back after enlightenment. Now I hope you will keep your former promise and come back at the right time to see me.¹

After a rapid exchange of messages, his son—now the Buddha—makes the long trek home, accompanied by a retinue of more than five hundred monks. Joyfully anticipating his son’s arrival, the king has his ministers prepare a large, well-appointed encampment outside of town called the Nigrodha (Banyan) Grove. He further instructs that the streets of Kapilavastu be lavishly festooned with banners and flowers to welcome their prince:

The Buddha will come. You have to adorn the city and make it clean to the utmost degree, clean the streets, erect flags and banners all over the city, provide abundant flowers and perfumes and wait for consecrating him.²

Overjoyed to hear that her son has returned, Mahaprajapati rides out to the Nigrodha Grove in a chariot with her husband and Yasodhara to welcome him. Recall that she is blind. Although she cannot see the festivities, she is thrilled to hear the loud jubilation of the crowds. A throng of eager Sakyas has already gathered to see their prince, but some of them are skeptical. What’s all the fuss about Siddhartha’s alleged accomplishments? His uncles, the Sakya princes, in particular are arrogantly expecting that their nephew will pay them and the king obeisance by bowing down to them in the tradition of their caste and tribe.

Through his direct insight, the Buddha knows this to be the case. However, he also knows that everything has changed—for real. No longer is he a scion in the lineage of the Sakyas, but the successor in a long line of enlightened buddhas. Not only would it be untoward for him to bow to family members, but their heads would split open into seven pieces if he were to do so (this same conundrum arose earlier when the infant Bodhisattva was taken to the temple to pay homage to the clan goddess, Abhayadevi). Sizing up the predicament, out of compassion for his family, the Buddha preemptively rises into the air and performs miracles, manifesting the supernormal powers (siddhis) that naturally arise as a side effect of enlightenment. Not only does this prove his attainments to them once and for all, but surreptitiously, by rising above the Sakyas’ heads, he does their prostrations for them.

As Mahaprajapati’s chariot approaches, the Sakyas are shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!” over the miracle of water streaming in jets from the Buddha’s body. Because she cannot see what is happening, she asks her daughter-in-law to explain:

What is the meaning of these thousand shouts of bravo?

Cupping her hands together, Yasodhara collects some of the blessed water and replies,

Here is the Exalted One standing in the air and performing various and diverse miracles. . . . But you cannot see them. Come, I shall contrive that you see them.³

Yasodhara gently bathes Mahaprajapati’s eyes with the sacred water, and lo, her blindness is “pierced through the virtue of the Buddha.”⁴ Her vision restored, Mahaprajapati and her son are reunited at last. Her joyful gaze clearly sees the radiance of the Buddha, who is still Siddhartha in this mother’s heart. Bowing down at his feet, she reverently pays homage to him, then joins her husband sitting to one side, as parents and son catch up on news.

Turning to the Dharma

Meeting with their son in the Nigrodha Grove was just the first step in the family becoming reacquainted. Quite understandably, no one knew what to make of Siddhartha’s transformation. What exactly did becoming a buddha mean? How were family members to resume their former relationships with him? What was different, and what was the same? What did it mean to be the father, mother, wife, or son of a buddha? To address questions such as these, ancient storytellers skillfully spun anecdotes that clarified the family’s “new normal,” not just for what it meant to them but also what it meant to their Buddhist audiences.

In one such story, the king is aghast to hear that his son, the newly arrived Buddha, is passing from door to door in Kapilavastu begging for alms. Embarrassed and outraged, Suddhodana meets his son in the street and upbraids him for his unprincely conduct, an indignity both to the family and their proud line of Sakya ancestors. Why not just come home to the palace for dinner? In the conversation that follows, the Buddha gently explains that his behavior and allegiance no longer stem from family bloodlines but from his karmic ancestry and that of the enlightened buddhas. He is no longer beholden to the Sakya clan but to the Buddha clan. The king has more struggles ahead before he can accept that his relationship with his son is forever changed.

In a related story, we learn that Yasodhara desperately hopes for a reconciliation with her husband. She is still furious that he left and has been unhappily coping with life as an abandoned wife and single mother. When the Buddha accepts his father’s invitation to dinner in the palace (bringing along his assembly of five hundred or so monks), she refuses to appear, saying that he must come to her private quarters instead. Out of kindness, he does so with two attendants in tow, even allowing her to embrace his feet, which normally would be forbidden. (These were necessary karmic steps, he had earlier explained to his monks, preparing Yasodhara and other harem women for eventual ordination.⁵) Despite Yasodhara’s tears and anguish during their encounter, there is no turning back. He is not going to return as her beloved husband. Yasodhara’s new normal is to give up any hope of saving her marriage and to face the future alone.

Only Mahaprajapati takes her son’s return in stride. There are no rough spots for her, when all she has ever wanted is to see her cherished son again. Siddhartha or Buddha, he is simply her son. Rejoicing in his presence, her mother’s love for him flows forward effortlessly and unconditionally as demonstrated over and over in the stories that follow.

What exactly did becoming a buddha mean?

After their first meeting in the Nigrodha Grove, Mahaprajapati too invites the Buddha and his monks to dinner. Here we catch a glimpse of harem life, as her invitation is for the monastics to take a meal in the women’s quarters of the palace, the queen’s personal domain as chief consort. She has been the matriarch of this all-female community since the time of Maya’s death, more than forty years earlier. Many of these women would have been Siddhartha’s former consorts too. No doubt they recalled the night of his Great Departure, their seductive efforts to keep him home, and the sorrow that followed in the palace and kingdom. We can only imagine their emotional responses to the prince’s return, but we’re told they followed Mahaprajapati’s lead in welcoming him back. The following story is found in the Mahavastu.⁶

Unlike her husband and daughter-in-law, Mahaprajapati readily grasps the utter transformation that has taken place in her son. Bowing to his feet with humility and reverence, she says, “Let the Exalted One consent to eat tomorrow at my house.” Overflowing with joy when he consents, Mahaprajapati sets about all manner of effusive preparations. Just as the king had Kapilavastu festooned in welcome, her house is swept top to bottom, draped with fine cloth, strewn with heaps of flowers, and made fragrant with the finest incense. A worthy seat is specially prepared for her son, with careful attention to seating arrangements according to rank for the attending monks.

The Buddha and his retinue arrive dressed in simple mendicant robes, holding their alms bowls. Even though Mahaprajapati is queen and always doted on by servants, she serves her guests piously and joyously with her own hands:

And Mahaprajapati Gautami with her own hands regaled and served with plentiful solid and soft food first the Buddha and then the company of his monks.

What happens next is of special significance not just to Mahaprajapati’s personal story but to the story of the founding of the nun’s order. In detail not found elsewhere, we’re told the Buddha gives his mother and her assembly of women their first dharma teaching:

When the Exalted One had finished eating, washed his hands and put away his bowl, and the company of monks had done likewise, he gave Mahaprajapati Gautami and the women of the court a graduated discourse on dharma.

What exactly does that mean?

Now this is what the graduated discourse of exalted Buddhas is, namely, a discourse on charity, a discourse on morality, a discourse on heaven, a discourse on merit and a discourse on the fruition of merit.

An arrow of insight pierces Mahaprajapati’s heart. Instantly she understands the meaning of her son’s words. So the Buddha continued:

And then the Exalted One revealed to her the four [noble] truths of ill, the arising of ill, the cessation of ill, and the Way leading to the cessation of ill. And while she sat there on her seat, Mahaprajapati Gautami won a clear dharma-insight, pure and unsullied into things.

Mahaprajapati is struck with profound understanding and attains stream entry, or the first stage in the four levels of realization leading to arhatship from which there is no turning back.⁷ In that moment, presiding as queen and surrounded by a close-knit community of women, her life turns inexorably to dharma.

What did it mean to be the father, mother, wife, or son of a buddha?

Mahaprajapati was undoubtedly the first Sakya woman to become a laywoman, or upasika, in the burgeoning community of faithful that comprised early Buddhism. The texts don’t comment on the reactions of the harem women after this first dharma teaching, but we know the experience transformed them too, since in stories that follow they also became upasikas and looked to their queen for leadership as the new faith took root and flourished among the Sakyas. Later still, many of them joined Mahaprajapati in taking the added step of ordaining as nuns.

With the Buddha’s return, Mahaprajapati’s star was rising again. No longer the mother of an errant prince who had disrupted the kingdom and disappointed his kin, now she was the mother of the Blessed One, the Buddha, the newly minted minister of dharma, who fulfilled his promise to return to his people with messages of truth that would free them from worldly suffering. In her twin roles as mother and queen, she was now the most intimate relation—female or male—to both a buddha and a king.⁸ It is worth a pause to reflect on this turning point in her life. Momentous for her, of course, but we’re also seeing further seeds of Buddhism planted as Mahaprajapati is the one who will eventually partner with her son to help bring his fourfold community to its completion.

As we shall see, Mahaprajapati eased into her new role with grace and dignity. She never faltered in the limelight, rather she expanded her personal power over time into assuming responsibility for hundreds, if not thousands, of women who trusted her for her compassionate guidance in bringing them to the dharma. Her role as the mother of the Buddha had only just begun, but it was one that Mahaprajapati would fill with selfless dedication, generosity, and wisdom until the end of her life.

Footnotes

  1. Xianlin, Fragments of the Tocharian, 12.
  2. Xianlin, Fragments of the Tocharian, 12.
  3. Jones, Mahavastu, 3:116.
  4. Jones, Mahavastu, 3:116.
  5. Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, 203–4.
  6. Jones, Mahavastu, 3:245–46.
  7. Bhikkhu Analayo, “Gotami-sutta,” in Madhyama-agama Studies ( Ta i p e i : Dharma Drum Publications, 2012), 470; Bigandet, Legend of Gaudama, 177.
  8. Damcho Diana Finnegan, “‘For the Sake of Women, Too’: Ethics and Gender in the Narratives of the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison (2009), 126.

*The texts are contradictory about her age throughout.

Wendy GarlingWendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life, a groundbreaking new biography of the Buddha that relates his journey to awakening through the stories of Buddhism’s first women. For many years Wendy has taught women’s spirituality focusing on Buddhist traditions, while also pursuing original research into women’s stories from ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature.

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Lha Bab Duchen | The Buddha’s Descent from Tushita

Maya’s Conversion

Stars at Dawn

An Excerpt from Stars at Dawn

We return to the Buddha’s biography as he, too, has reached the end of his life. For forty-five years he roamed northeast India, teaching his disciples and converting an ever-growing number of women and men to the new Buddhist faith. At the core of his ministry’s purpose lay his simple altruistic wish—shared by all previous buddhas—to be a lamp on the path for those seeking freedom from the throes of worldly suffering. Among the Buddha’s early converts were his family members, all of whom (except Suddhodana) took ordination and became part of his monastic order.

However, on the family side, one loose end still needed the Buddha’s attention. In the tradition of buddhas, the conversion of one’s parents is the supreme act of gratitude for their loving gifts of life and nurturance. It is also an item on every buddha’s bucket list—to convert one’s parents before passing into parinirvana. The Buddha’s father and Mahaprajapati, as we know, had converted to the new faith. However, the Buddha’s mother, Maya, abiding in heaven as a goddess, had not yet converted. She died well before she could benefit from his salvific teachings. With her welfare in mind, the Buddha determined to travel to the heavenly realms to find her. The stories about this significant event typically focus on the important teachings the Buddha reputedly gave while abiding three months in Trayastrimsha heaven. However a few narrative fragments center on the interactions between mother and son that took place at that time.

The Buddha ascends to heaven without difficulty because immense mountains lower their summits and lift him up, taking him to the sacred teaching spot at the nexus of the celestial realms.78 The Kangyur describes this seat as a gleaming white stone surrounded by a beautiful grove of trees.79 Multitudes of goddesses and gods gather around, including the Buddha’s mother, to whom his subsequent teachings are directed. In some traditions, Maya has become male; for example, in the Sinhalese story, she appears as the male leader of the entire celestial assembly but is still conspicuously named Matru, or “mother.” 80 In the Burmese tradition, she remains female and appears as the daughter of an unnamed god.81 The Lalitavistara concludes before this event takes place, but we know from earlier accounts that Maya in heaven retained her femaleness both as a goddess and as an emotionally engaged mother. Now the Buddha’s profound teachings convert not only her, but everyone within earshot. Due to her exceptional merit, Maya attains arhatship on the spot. As other women in the Buddha’s life have expressed, she states that her goal over countless lifetimes has now been fulfilled. Her son’s karmic debt to her has been repaid. She says,

You who have been born from my womb so many times, have now rendered me a recompense. In one birth, from being a slave I became the wife of the king of Benares, but that exaltation was not equal to the privilege I now receive. From the time of Piyumatura [Buddha], during an [eon], you sought no other mother and I sought no other son. Now, my reward is received.82

Soon after this, the Buddha descends to earth on a resplendent staircase surrounded by rainbows and retinues of newly converted celestial devotees.*

A much more complete story of mother and son reuniting in heaven appears in the Mahamayasutra, originally composed in Sanskrit but now extant only in Chinese.This account opens with the Buddha already in Trayastrimsha heaven, seated under a tree in meditation and surrounded by a vast assembly of disciples. In lengthy verse, he opines to a messenger stories of his birth and his long-held wish to see again the sublime face of his mother and preach to her the dharma as an act of gratitude for giving him life. The messenger swiftly conveys this message to Maya some distance away. Upon hearing the words of her son, milk streams from her breasts. If the Buddha is indeed Siddhartha, she says, then her milk will reach his mouth directly. So, miraculously, her milk enters his mouth from afar. As miracles attend this event, she declares that she has not experienced such joy since the moment of his birth. Thus, mother and son are reunited. Maya greets him ceremoniously by taking refuge, with the stated purpose of realizing the fruits of awakening. For innumerable eons, as his mother nourishing him at her breast, her motivation has been to cut the bonds of rebirth and enter the stream of arhatship.The Buddha demonstrates his gratitude by giving her a teaching that notes the inevitability of separation and his impending nirvana. When the time comes for him to depart, Maya is beset with sorrow.

There are two details of special note for women in this sutra. First, before the Buddha delivers his homily, Maya herself gives extensive teachings to the assembled disciples. In fact, most of the dharma passages are delivered in her voice. Further, in a departure from the convention that only deities can appear in the celestial realms, the seated assembly witnessing the reunion of Maya and her son numbers both human and nonhuman living beings, including a host of earthly laywomen, laymen, nuns, and monks. Together, they accompany the Buddha on his return to earth via the magical staircase. Greeting them below is King Prasenajit, similarly surrounded by a throng of the fourfold community, which has been clamoring to see their beloved teacher again.83

Notes

* This famous scene is commonly depicted in Buddhist art.

† The sutra does not appear in an English translation at this time. What follows is summarized from an article by Hubert Durt.

‡ We find clear parallels between Maya and Sujata in this story.

78. Bigandet, Legend of Gaudama, 1:219.

79. Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, 80–81.

80. Hardy, Manual of Budhism, 298.

81. Bigandet, Legend of Gaudama, 1:223.

82. Hardy, Manual of Budhism, 300.

83. Hubert Durt, “The Meeting of the Buddha with Māyā in the Trāyastrimśa Heaven: Examination of the Mahāmāyā Sūtra and Its Quotations in the Shijiapu, Part 1,” Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 11 (2007): 44–66.

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Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. For many years Wendy has taught women’s spirituality focusing on Buddhist traditions, while also pursuing original research into women’s stories from ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature. Learn More.

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