Mother of the Buddhas


Book Description

Lex Hixon's "contemplative expansion" of forty passages from the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the basic scripture of all schools of Mahayana Buddhism, yields a text of devotional beauty that is at once dramatic and uplifting. The text sets forth the Bodhisattva path to enlightenment. Features a foreword by renowned American Buddhist scholar Dr. Robert A. Thurman.




Buddhism for Mothers


Book Description

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.




The Woman Who Raised the Buddha


Book Description

Nautilus Book Award Winner The first full biography of Mahaprajapati Gautami, the woman who raised the Buddha--examining her life through stories and canonical records. 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. While there is a lot of ambiguity overall in the Buddha's biography, this detail remains consistent across all Buddhist traditions and literature. In this first full biography of Mahaprajapati, The Woman Who Raised the Buddha 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. Drawing from story fragments and canonical records, Wendy 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.




The First Free Women


Book Description

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.




Buddhist Goddesses of India


Book Description

"The Indian Buddhist world abounds with goddesses--voluptuous tree spirits, maternal nurturers, potent healers and protectors, transcendent wisdom figures, cosmic mothers of liberation, and dancing female Buddhas. Despite their importance in Buddhist thought and practice, these female deities have received relatively little scholarly attention, and no comprehensive study of the female pantheon has been available. Buddhist Goddesses of India is the essential and definitive guide to divinities that, as Miranda Shaw writes, "operate from transcendent planes of bliss and awareness for as long as their presence may benefit living beings." Beautifully illustrated, the book chronicles the histories, legends, and artistic portrayals of nineteen goddesses and several related human figures and texts. Drawing on a sweeping range of material, from devotional poetry and meditation manuals to rituals and artistic images, Shaw reveals the character, powers, and practice traditions of the female divinities. Interpretations of intriguing traits such as body color, stance, hairstyle, clothing, jewelry, hand gestures, and handheld objects lend deep insight into the symbolism and roles of each goddess. In addition to being a comprehensive reference, this book traces the fascinating history of these goddesses as they evolved through the early, Mahayana, and Tantric movements in India and found a place in the pantheons of Tibet and Nepal."--Publisher's website.




Mother of Knowledge


Book Description

This dramatic biography of Yeshe Tsogyal tells of her flight from home, her spiritual training under Guru Padmasambhava, and her enlightened accomplishments. A tribute to the most revered woman of the Nyingma lineage.




Stars at Dawn


Book Description

A contemporary and provocative examination of the life of the Buddha highlighting the influence of women from his journey to awakening through his teaching career--based on overlooked or neglected stories from ancient source material. In this retelling of the ancient legends of the women in the Buddha’s intimate circle, lesser-known stories from Sanskrit and Pali sources are for the first time woven into an illuminating, coherent narrative that follows his life from his birth to his parinirvana or death. Interspersed with original insights, fresh interpretations, and bold challenges to the status quo, the stories are both entertaining and thought-provoking—some may even appear controversial. Focusing first on laywomen from the time before the Buddha’s enlightenment—his birth mother and stepmother, his co-wives, and members of his harem when he was known as Prince Siddhartha—then moving on to the Buddha’s first female disciples, early nuns, and to female patrons, Wendy Garling invites us to open our minds to a new understanding of their roles.




The Buddha's Wife


Book Description

As women’s spirituality continues to gain popularity, The Buddha’s Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment. What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodhara’s journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and “ordinary” relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodhara’s experience speaks of “The Path of Right Relation,” of achieving awareness not alone but together with others. The Buddha’s Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, and the second part is a “how-to” reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.




Receptacle of the Sacred


Book Description

In considering medieval illustrated Buddhist manuscripts as sacred objects of cultic innovation, Receptacle of the Sacred explores how and why the South Asian Buddhist book-cult has survived for almost two millennia to the present. A book “manuscript” should be understood as a form of sacred space: a temple in microcosm, not only imbued with divine presence but also layered with the memories of many generations of users. Jinah Kim argues that illustrating a manuscript with Buddhist imagery not only empowered it as a three-dimensional sacred object, but also made it a suitable tool for the spiritual transformation of medieval Indian practitioners. Through a detailed historical analysis of Sanskrit colophons on patronage, production, and use of illustrated manuscripts, she suggests that while Buddhism’s disappearance in eastern India was a slow and gradual process, the Buddhist book-cult played an important role in sustaining its identity. In addition, by examining the physical traces left by later Nepalese users and the contemporary ritual use of the book in Nepal, Kim shows how human agency was critical in perpetuating and intensifying the potency of a manuscript as a sacred object throughout time.




Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chod


Book Description

Machig Labdron is popularly considered to be both a dakini and a deity, an emanation of Yum Chenmo, or Prajnaparamita, the embodiment of the wisdom of the buddhas. Historically, this Tibetan woman, a contemporary of Milarepa, was an adept and outstanding teacher, a mother, and a founder of a unique transmission lineage known as the Chöd of Mahamudra. This translation of the most famous biography of Machig Labdron, founder of the unique Mahamudra Chöd tradition, is presented together with a comprehensive overview of Chöd's historical and doctrinal origins in Indian Buddhism and its subsequent transmission to Tibet. Chöd refers to cutting through the grasping at a self and its attendant emotional afflictions. Most famous for its teaching on transforming the aggregates into an offering of food for demons as a compassionate act of self-sacrifice, Chöd aims to free the mind from all fear and to arouse realization of its true nature, primordially clear bliss and emptiness.