Gender And The Path To Awakening

"In this book Seeger lays out the nuances and varying conceptions of female renunciation in modern Thai Buddhism. Centered on long-term textual and ethnographic research on six remarkable female practitioners, Seeger considers trends and changes over the last 140 years in the practices of female renunciants and their devotees. He also investigates understandings of female sainthood in Thai Buddhism, its expressions in material culture, and the importance of orality and memory in Thai Buddhist epistemology. Supported by interviews and careful study of sermons, hagiographies, and hitherto untranslated and rare Thai sources, this book examines the social backgrounds, modes of expression, veneration, and historical contexts of Thai women pursuing the Buddhist ideal. Rich in ethnographic detail and with additional grounding in foundational Indian Buddhist texts, this book offers new insights into the complexities of female renunciation and gender relations in modern Thai Buddhism."--Publisher's description

“What does liberation mean when I have incarnated in a particular body, with a particular shape, color, and sex?” In The Way of Tenderness, Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel brings Buddhist philosophies of emptiness and appearance to bear on race, sexuality, and gender, using wisdom forged through personal experience and practice to rethink problems of identity and privilege. Manuel brings her own experiences as a bisexual black woman into conversation with Buddhism to square our ultimately empty nature with superficial perspectives of everyday life. Her hard-won insights reveal that dry wisdom alone is not sufficient to heal the wounds of the marginalized; an effective practice must embrace the tenderness found where conventional reality and emptiness intersect. Only warmth and compassion can cure hatred and heal the damage it wreaks within us. This is a book that will teach us all.

A bold and provocative work from the late preeminent feminist scholar, which challenges men and women alike to free themselves from attachment to gender. At the heart of Buddhism is the notion of egolessness—“forgetting the self”—as the path to awakening. In fact, attachment to views of any kind only leads to more suffering for ourselves and others. And what has a greater hold on people’s imaginations or limits them more, asks Rita Gross, than ideas about biological sex and what she calls “the prison of gender roles”? Yet if clinging to gender identity does, indeed, create obstacles for us, why does the prison of gender roles remain so inescapable? Gross uses the lenses of Buddhist philosophy to deconstruct the powerful concept of gender and its impact on our lives. In revealing the inadequacies involved in clinging to gender identity, she illuminates the suffering that results from clinging to any kind of identity at all.

These volumes provide an authoritative reference resource on leadership issues specific to women and gender, with a focus on positive aspects and opportunities for leadership in various domains.

A guide for personal exploration of the path to the divine feminine and the spiritual power of women. • Reveals the essential role of women in creating and maintaining the psychic/energetic/emotional landscape of society. • Explores feminine roles and the archetypal model of the Great Goddess from both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. • Includes exercises, meditations, and visualizations drawn from ancient techniques to assist women with their spiritual awakening and self-realization. The Path of the Priestess takes readers on a journey deep into the heart of the feminine experience. It describes the author's years of first-hand experience in the ancient arts of Tantra, Dzogchen, and Indian and Egyptian temple dance and healing, as well as her research into the feminine principle in the mystic teachings of the Alchemists, Hebrew Kabbalists, and Christian Gnostics. Beginning with an analysis of the basic issues and frustrations inherent in contemporary society's conditioning of and expectations for women, readers travel back in time to the age of the great temples, schools, and sacred societies in which women still held and transmitted the spiritual light that nourished all of civilization. Through its mythic and historic tales, descriptions of sacred ritual practices, and teachings on the Goddess traditions, The Path of the Priestess provides contemporary women with the means to enter this time-honored path. In keeping with the experientially based teaching methods of these traditions, it also offers exercises and visualizations designed to align women with the powerful, sensuous, and loving energies of the most profound feminine role model that shaped and preserved culture and society--the Great Goddess.

PrefaceThere is a sacred current of light that runs throughout time and space-the light of the Divine Feminine. It is a continuum. It arises at the birth of creation and forms a sacred path into the denseness of matter and back again. As we descend from the fullness of this light into the depths of the material world, this light is always present to nourish and sustain us. Flowing through all our lives and incarnations, it is the vital and transformative current of truth, virtue, and integrity, a shining stream of spiritual essence that leads us along the path of emanation to the path of return and reunion with the primordial source. As women, as mothers, as teachers and guides, as emissaries of the Great Goddess, it is our sacred duty and privilege to hold this current of light in our hearts and carry it from generation to generation. This is our essential role as women: to hold this pure light of Divinity in our hearts, to keep the lamp of inner freedom burning in the darkness, to nurture and protect this light whatever the cost, and to transmit its radiance, its exquisite beauty, to our men and children.

Exploring the dire consequences of cultural conditioning and feminine suppression, Woman Be Wild takes readers on a healing journey to wholeness by reconnecting women to their natural sexuality and true Wild nature. Indigo examines the demands and effects of our culture and how it has severed our fundamental connection to the Earth, the feminine, our sexuality, and our spirituality. Detailing the process of shedding limiting beliefs and oppressive conditioning, she provides encouragement, support, and a gentle push for her readers to return to their Wild, natural state of being. Readers will learn how to cultivate a deeper relationship with their physical bodies and sexuality, their subtle senses and intuition, the Earth and their spiritual connection to all of life. Indigo reveals how by healing this connection and restoring balance in ourselves, we unlock our individual keys and become vessels for creating a New Earth.Woman Be Wild is a journey of feminine awakening, empowerment, and freedom. It dissolves the shaming of sex and commands that we put an end to patriarchal rule and feminine suppression. The text explains that to do this, we must un-define what it means to be a woman and free women to express themselves fully, diversely, and authentically so they can embrace who they really are and reclaim their Wild, feminine power.