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Author: Paula Kane Robinson Arai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195344154
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
In this study, based on both historical evidence and ethnographic data, Paula Arai shows that nuns were central agents in the foundation of Buddhism in Japan in the sixth century. They were active participants in the Soto Zen sect, and have continued to contribute to the advancement of the sect to the present day. Drawing on her fieldwork among the Soto nuns, Arai demonstrates that the lives of many of these women embody classical Buddhist ideals. They have chosen to lead a strictly disciplined monastic life over against successful careers and the unconstrained contemporary secular lifestyle. In this, and other respects, they can be shown to stand in stark contrast to their male counterparts.
Author: Paula Kane Robinson Arai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195344154
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Get Book
Book Description
In this study, based on both historical evidence and ethnographic data, Paula Arai shows that nuns were central agents in the foundation of Buddhism in Japan in the sixth century. They were active participants in the Soto Zen sect, and have continued to contribute to the advancement of the sect to the present day. Drawing on her fieldwork among the Soto nuns, Arai demonstrates that the lives of many of these women embody classical Buddhist ideals. They have chosen to lead a strictly disciplined monastic life over against successful careers and the unconstrained contemporary secular lifestyle. In this, and other respects, they can be shown to stand in stark contrast to their male counterparts.
Author: Paula Arai
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824860136
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
Healing lies at the heart of Zen in the home, as Paula Arai discovered in her pioneering research on the ritual lives of Zen Buddhist laywomen. She reveals a vital stream of religious practice that flourishes outside the bounds of formal institutions through sacred rites that women develop and transmit to one another. Everyday objects and common materials are used in inventive ways. For example, polishing cloths, vivified by prayer and mantra recitation, become potent tools. The creation of beauty through the arts of tea ceremony, calligraphy, poetry, and flower arrangement become rites of healing. Bringing Zen Home brings a fresh perspective to Zen scholarship by uncovering a previously unrecognized but nonetheless vibrant strand of lay practice. The creativity of domestic Zen is evident in the ritual activities that women fashion, weaving tradition and innovation, to gain a sense of wholeness and balance in the midst of illness, loss, and anguish. Their rituals include chanting, ingesting elixirs and consecrated substances, and contemplative approaches that elevate cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and caring for the sick and dying into spiritual disciplines. Creating beauty is central to domestic Zen and figures prominently in Arai’s analyses. She also discovers a novel application of the concept of Buddha nature as the women honor deceased loved ones as “personal Buddhas.” One of the hallmarks of the study is its longitudinal nature, spanning fourteen years of fieldwork. Arai developed a “second-person,” or relational, approach to ethnographic research prompted by recent trends in psychobiology. This allowed her to cultivate relationships of trust and mutual vulnerability over many years to inquire into not only the practices but also their ongoing and changing roles. The women in her study entrusted her with their life stories, personal reflections, and religious insights, yielding an ethnography rich in descriptive and narrative detail as well as nuanced explorations of the experiential dimensions and effects of rituals. In Bringing Zen Home, the first study of the ritual lives of Zen laywomen, Arai applies a cutting-edge ethnographic method to reveal a thriving domain of religious practice. Her work represents an important contribution on a number of fronts—to Zen studies, ritual studies, scholarship on women and religion, and the cross-cultural study of healing.
Author: Grace Schireson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861719565
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
This landmark presentation at last makes heard the centuries of Zen's female voices. Through exploring the teachings and history of Zen's female ancestors, from the time of the Buddha to ancient and modern female masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Grace Schireson offers us a view of a more balanced Dharma practice, one that is especially applicable to our complex lives, embedded as they are in webs of family relations and responsibilities, and the challenges of love and work. Part I of this book describes female practitioners as they are portrayed in the classic literature of "Patriarchs' Zen"--often as "tea-ladies," bit players in the drama of male students' enlightenments; as "iron maidens," tough-as-nails women always jousting with their male counterparts; or women who themselves become "macho masters," teaching the same Patriarchs' Zen as the men do. Part II of this book presents a different view--a view of how women Zen masters entered Zen practice and how they embodied and taught Zen uniquely as women. This section examines many urgent and illuminating questions about our Zen grandmothers: How did it affect them to be taught by men? What did they feel as they trying to fit into this male practice environment, and how did their Zen training help them with their feelings? How did their lives and relationships differ from that of their male teachers? How did they express the Dharma in their own way for other female students? How was their teaching consistently different from that of male ancestors? And then part III explores how women's practice provides flexible and pragmatic solutions to issues arising in contemporary Western Zen centers.
Author: Paula Kane Robinson Arai
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190258405
Category : Buddhist nuns
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Tracy Franz
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
ISBN: 1611729300
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
In February 2004, when her American husband, a recently ordained Zen monk, leaves home to train for a year at a centuries-old Buddhist monastery, Tracy Franz embarks on her own year of Zen. An Alaskan alone—and lonely—in Japan, she begins to pay attention. My Year of Dirt and Water is a record of that journey. Allowed only occasional and formal visits to see her cloistered husband, Tracy teaches English, studies Japanese, and devotes herself to making pottery. Her teacher instructs her to turn cup after cup—creating one failure after another. Past and present, East and West intertwine as Tracy is twice compelled to return home to Alaska to confront her mother’s newly diagnosed cancer and the ghosts of a devastating childhood. Revolving through the days, My Year of Dirt and Water circles hard questions: What is love? What is art? What is practice? What do we do with the burden of suffering? The answers are formed and then unformed—a ceramic bowl born on the wheel and then returned again and again to dirt and water.
Author: Angel Kyodo Williams
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101199458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
"Honest, courageous... Williams has committed an act of love."—Alice Walker "A classic."—Jack Kornfield There truly is an art to being here in this world, and like any art, it can be mastered. In this elegant, practical book, Angel Kyodo Williams combines the universal wisdom of Buddhism with an inspirational call for self-acceptance and community empowerment. Written by a woman who grew up facing the challenges that confront African-Americans every day, Being Black teaches us how a "warrior spirit" of truth and responsibility can be developed into the foundation for real happiness and personal transformation. With her eloquent, hip, and honest perspective, Williams—a Zen priest, social activist, and entrepreneur—shares personal stories, time-tested teachings, and simple guidelines that invite readers of all faiths to step into the freedom of a life lived with fearlessness and grace.
Author: Steven Heine
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195304675
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Written by prominent scholars, this text covers rituals from the early Chan period to modern Japan and key developments that occurred in the Linji/Rinzai and Caodon/Soto schools. It describes how rituals mould the lives of its practitioners in accordance with the ideal of Zen awakening.
Author: Grace Schireson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 086171475X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
This landmark presentation at last makes heard the centuries of Zen's female voices. Through exploring the teachings and history of Zen's female ancestors, from the time of the Buddha to ancient and modern female masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Grace Schireson offers us a view of a more balanced Dharma practice, one that is especially applicable to our complex lives, embedded as they are in webs of family relations and responsibilities, and the challenges of love and work. Part I of this book describes female practitioners as they are portrayed in the classic literature of "Patriarchs' Zen"--often as "tea-ladies," bit players in the drama of male students' enlightenments; as "iron maidens," tough-as-nails women always jousting with their male counterparts; or women who themselves become "macho masters," teaching the same Patriarchs' Zen as the men do. Part II of this book presents a different view--a view of how women Zen masters entered Zen practice and how they embodied and taught Zen uniquely as women. This section examines many urgent and illuminating questions about our Zen grandmothers: How did it affect them to be taught by men? What did they feel as they trying to fit into this male practice environment, and how did their Zen training help them with their feelings? How did their lives and relationships differ from that of their male teachers? How did they express the Dharma in their own way for other female students? How was their teaching consistently different from that of male ancestors? And then part III explores how women's practice provides flexible and pragmatic solutions to issues arising in contemporary Western Zen centers.
Author: Karen Maezen Miller
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834824892
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Combining humor, honesty, and plainspoken advice, Momma Zen distills the doubts and frustrations of parenting into vignettes of Zen wisdom. Drawing on her experience as a first-time mother, and on her years of Zen meditation and study, Miller explores how the daily challenges of parenthood can become the most profound spiritual journey of our lives. This compelling and wise memoir follows the timeline of early motherhood from pregnancy through toddlerhood. Momma Zen takes readers on a transformative journey, charting a mother’s growth beyond naive expectations and disorientation to finding fulfillment in ordinary tasks, developing greater self-awareness and acceptance—to the gradual discovery of "maternal bliss," a state of abiding happiness and ease that is available to us all. In her gentle and reassuring voice, Karen Miller convinces us that ancient and authentic spiritual lessons can be as familiar as a lullaby, as ordinary as pureed peas, and as frequent as a sleepless night. She offers encouragement for the hard days, consolation for the long haul, and the lightheartedness every new mom needs to face the crooked path of motherhood straight on.
Author: Rōshi P.T.N.H. Jiyu-Kennett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317214684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374
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Book Description
This book, first published as Selling Water by the River in 1972, is a practical and inspirational manual for all who wish to practice Zen. Rōshi P.T.N.H. Jiyu-Kennett, the founder and former abbess of Shasta Abbey, expertly combines an introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhism with original translations of the teachings of Zen Masters Dōgen and Keizan.
