ZEN Women by Grace Schireson
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 I 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 I explores how women's practice provides flexible and pragmatic solutions to issues arising in contemporary Western Zen centers.Grace Schireson is a Dharma teacher in the Suzuki Roshi tradition, ordained by Berkeley Zen Center's abbot, Sojun Mel Weitsman. Keido Fukushima Roshi, chief abbot of Tofukuji Monastery in Kyoto, Japan, has also given her permission to teach koans. Grace is the founder and leader of three Zen groups and a Zen retreat center in California, as well as the chief teacher of the Central Valley Zen Foundation. Grace is also a Clinical Psychologist with a focus on women and their families. She is the mother of two boys and three grandkids and has been married for nearly forty years.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780861714759 |
| ISBN 10 | 086171475X |
| Title | ZEN Women |
| Author | Grace Schireson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Wisdom Publications,U.S. |
| Year published | 2009-10-27 |
| Number of pages | 375 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |