Buddhist Nuns

Author : Kim Gutschow
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2009-07-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674038080

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Being a Buddhist Nun by Kim Gutschow Pdf

They may shave their heads, don simple robes, and renounce materialism and worldly desires. But the women seeking enlightenment in a Buddhist nunnery high in the folds of Himalayan Kashmir invariably find themselves subject to the tyrannies of subsistence, subordination, and sexuality. Ultimately, Buddhist monasticism reflects the very world it is supposed to renounce. Butter and barley prove to be as critical to monastic life as merit and meditation. Kim Gutschow lived for more than three years among these women, collecting their stories, observing their ways, studying their lives. Her book offers the first ethnography of Tibetan Buddhist society from the perspective of its nuns. Gutschow depicts a gender hierarchy where nuns serve and monks direct, where monks bless the fields and kitchens while nuns toil in them. Monasteries may retain historical endowments and significant political and social power, yet global flows of capitalism, tourism, and feminism have begun to erode the balance of power between monks and nuns. Despite the obstacles of being considered impure and inferior, nuns engage in everyday forms of resistance to pursue their ascetic and personal goals. A richly textured picture of the little known culture of a Buddhist nunnery, the book offers moving narratives of nuns struggling with the Buddhist discipline of detachment. Its analysis of the way in which gender and sexuality construct ritual and social power provides valuable insight into the relationship between women and religion in South Asia today.

Author : Thubten Chodron
Publisher : North Atlantic Books
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Buddhist monasticism and religious orders for women
ISBN : 1556433255

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Blossoms of the Dharma by Thubten Chodron Pdf

In the first book to reflect the voices of Buddhist nuns from every major tradition, 14 contributors describe their experiences, explain their order's history, and discuss their lives. 14 photos.

Author : Eun-su Cho
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2012-01-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781438435121

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Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen by Eun-su Cho Pdf

Uncovering hidden histories, this book focuses on Korean Buddhist nuns and laywomen from the fourth century to the present. Today, South Korea's Buddhist nuns have a thriving monastic community under their own control, and they are well known as meditation teachers and social service providers. However, little is known of the women who preceded them. Using primary sources to reveal that which has been lost, forgotten, or willfully ignored, this work reveals various figures, milieux, and activities of female adherents, clerical and lay. Contributors consider examples from the early days of Buddhism in Korea during the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods (first millennium CE); the Koryŏ period (982–1392), when Buddhism flourished as the state religion; the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), when Buddhism was actively suppressed by the Neo-Confucian Court; and the contemporary resurgence of female monasticism that began in the latter part of the twentieth century.

Author : Mohan Wijeyaratna
Publisher : Buddhist Publication Society
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2010-12-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789552403453

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Buddhist Nuns by Mohan Wijeyaratna Pdf

The Community of Buddhist Nuns is one of the oldest women’s organizations in human history. In this book Dr. Wijayaratna explains how this community was started by the Buddha in the 5th century BCE, and how it developed gradually. To show the motivation and the way of life of these ordained women, the author uses the oldest texts of the Pali canon. Several chapters of this book discuss the position of Buddhist nuns in the field of the three famous monastic themes: poverty, chastity and obedience. This book describes in detail the structure of the organization of their Community, their day-to-day practices, and the virtues and mental discipline through which they strove to attain the sublime goal, Nibbana.

Author : Matty Weingast
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2020-02-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780834842687

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The First Free Women by Matty Weingast Pdf

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.

Author : Kim Iryŏp
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2014-03-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824840235

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Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun by Kim Iryŏp Pdf

The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp was in her sixties, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Ŏnŭ sudoin ŭi hoesang) makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism. Throughout her writing, Iryŏp poses such questions as: How does one come to terms with one’s identity? What is the meaning of revolt and what are its limitations? How do we understand the different dimensions of love in the context of Buddhist teachings? What is Buddhist awakening? How do we attain it? How do we understand God and the relationship between good and evil? What is the meaning of religious practice in our time? We see through her thought and life experiences the co-existence of seemingly conflicting ideas and ideals—Christianity and Buddhism, sexual liberalism and religious celibacy, among others. In Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun, Iryŏp challenges readers with her creative interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and her reflections on the meaning of Buddhist practice. In the process she offers insight into a time when the ideas and contributions of women to twentieth-century Korean society and intellectual life were just beginning to emerge from the shadows, where they had been obscured in the name of modernization and nation-building.

Author : Hanna Havnevik
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1989
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : UVA:X030116968

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Tibetan Buddhist Nuns by Hanna Havnevik Pdf

This book offers for the first time a comprehensive account of Buddhist nuns and Tibetan Buddhist nuns in particular... Based on historical research and an extensive period of fieldwork in an exile nunnery in India, the present study gives a detailed description of the life of Buddhist nuns past and present. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the normative view of women in Buddhism and how in fact Tibetan nuns adjust to, or try to alter, to these norms.

Author : Hiroko Kawanami
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2013-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004234406

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Renunciation and Empowerment of Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar-Burma by Hiroko Kawanami Pdf

Myanmar-Burma has one of the largest concentrations of Buddhist nuns and monks in the world today. In Renunciation and Empowerment of Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar-Burma, Kawanami traces the nun's scholarly lineage in modern Myanmar history and examines their contemporary religious position in Myanmar's social and political contexts. Although their religious status may appear ambiguous from a textual viewpoint, it is argued that their large presence is a clear indication as to the important functions Buddhist nuns perform in the monastic community. Sagaing Hill where the main research was conducted, occupies an important educational centre for Myanmar nuns in consolidating their scholarly lineage and spreading the network of dhamma teachers. The book examines transactions that take place in their everyday lives and reveals the essence of their religious lives that make Buddhist nuns an essential bridge between sangha and society. Book jacket.

Author : Nirmala S. Salgado
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2013-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780199760015

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Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice by Nirmala S. Salgado Pdf

Nirmala S. Salgado offers a groundbreaking study of the politics of representation of Buddhist nuns. Challenging assumptions about writing on gender and Buddhism, Salgado raises important theoretical questions about the applicability of liberal feminist concepts and language to the practices of Buddhist nuns. Based on extensive research in Sri Lanka as well as on interviews with Theravada and Tibetan nuns from around the world, Salgado's study invites a reconsideration of female renunciation. How do scholarly narratives continue to be complicit in reinscribing colonialist and patriarchal stories about Buddhist women? In what ways have recent debates contributed to the construction of the subject of the Theravada bhikkhuni? How do key Buddhist concepts such as dukkha, samsara, and sila ground female renunciant practices? Salgado's provocative analysis of modern discourses about the supposed empowerment of nuns challenges interpretations of female renunciation articulated in terms of secular notions such as ''freedom'' in renunciation, and questions the idea that the higher ordination of nuns constitutes a movement in which female renunciants act as agents seeking to assert their autonomy in a struggle against patriarchal norms. Salgado argues that the concept of a global sisterhood of nuns-an idea grounded in a notion of equality as a universal ideal-promotes a discourse of dominance about the lives of non-Western women and calls for more nuanced readings of the everyday renunciant practices and lives of Buddhist nuns. Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice is essential reading for anyone interested in the connections between religion and power, subjectivity and gender, and feminism and postcolonialism.

Author : Beata Grant
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2012-06-04
Category : Poetry
ISBN : 9780861718221

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Daughters of Emptiness by Beata Grant Pdf

Women played major roles in the history of Buddhist China, but given the paucity of the remaining records, their voices have all but faded. In Daughters of Emptiness, Beata Grant renders a great service by recovering and translating the enchanting verse - by turns assertive, observant, devout - of forty-eight nuns from sixteen centuries of imperial China. This selection of poems, along with the brief biographical accounts that accompany them, affords readers a glimpse into the extraordinary diversity and sometimes startling richness of these women's lives. A sample poem for this stunning collection: The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward, Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year. Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows, Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain. The sunlight is cold rather than gentle, Spreading over the four corners like a cloud. A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north, Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses. Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring, But Spring pays no attention to me at all. Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack, The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time. How should I not know, one who has left the world, And for whom floating clouds are already familiar? In the garden there grows a rosary-plum tree: Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure. - Chan Master Jingnuo

Author : Gregory Schopen
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 482 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2014-07-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824838812

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Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters by Gregory Schopen Pdf

Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters: Recent Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India is the fourth in a series of collected essays by one of today’s most distinguished scholars of Indian Buddhism. In these articles Gregory Schopen once again displays the erudition and originality that have contributed to a major shift in the way that Indian Buddhism is perceived, understood, and studied.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2024-07-02
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781134168118

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Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka by Anonim Pdf

Author : Elise Anne DeVido
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 211 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2012-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781438431499

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Taiwan's Buddhist Nuns by Elise Anne DeVido Pdf

Explores the milieu of Taiwan’s Buddhist nuns, who have the greatest numbers in the Buddhist world and a prominent place in their own country.

Author : Gregory Schopen
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 482 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2014-07-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824838805

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Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters by Gregory Schopen Pdf

Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters: Recent Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India is the fourth in a series of collected essays by one of today’s most distinguished scholars of Indian Buddhism. In these articles Gregory Schopen once again displays the erudition and originality that have contributed to a major shift in the way that Indian Buddhism is perceived, understood, and studied.

Author : Karen Muldoon-Hules
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2017-06-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781498511469

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Brides of the Buddha by Karen Muldoon-Hules Pdf

For young women in early South Asia, marriage was probably the most important event in their lives, as it largely determined their socioeconomic and religious future. Yet there has been little in the way of systematic examinations of the evidence on marriage customs among Buddhists of this time, and our understanding of the lives of early Buddhist women is still quite limited. This study uses ten stories from the Avadānaśataka, the collection of Buddhist narratives compiled from the second to fifth centuries CE, to examine the social landscape of early India. The author analyzes marital customs and the development of nuns’ hagiographies, while revealing regional variations of Buddhism in South Asia during this period.