Enchanting, powerful, horrific, beautiful, wise, deadly, compassionate, seductive. Women in Buddhist story and image are all these things and more. She takes the signs of the ancient goddess – the lotus, the sacred grove, the serpent, the sacrifice – and uses them in astonishing new ways. Her story is one of suffering and great trials, and through it all an unquenchable longing to be free. This beautifully illustrated work is as layered and subversive as mythology itself. Based directly on authentic Buddhist texts, and informed with insights from psychology and comparative mythology, it takes a fresh look at how Buddhist women have been depicted by men and how they have depicted themselves....

...eal Māyā 10 Let’s Play 11 Perception, Symbol, Myth 12 On Using Jung 13 The Dhamma of Gender 14 Mythic Fact, Historic Fiction 15 The Other First Bhikkhuni 16 A Buddhist Femme Fatale 17 The Weaving of the Web 18 Fears of the Future 19 The Flood 20 The Serpent 21 The Deepest Taboo 22 How to Kill a Dead Nun 23 A Very Grievous Text 24 The Hero Departs 25 The Her...

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is the most influential scripture in Buddhist meditation. It is the foundation text for the modern schools of ‘vipassanā’ or ‘insight’ meditation. The well-known Pali discourse is, however, only one of many early Buddhist texts that deal with mindfulness. This is the first full-scale study to encompass all extant versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, taking into account the dynamic evolution of the Buddhist scriptures and the broader Indian meditative culture. A new vision emerges from this groundbreaking study: mindfulness is not a system of ‘dry insight’ but is the ‘way to convergence’ leading the mind to deep states of peace....

THE GIST: THE HIDDEN STRUCTURE OF THE DHAMMA Foreword: The Vipassananāvādā 1 The Meaning of ‘Buddha’ 1.1 The Ambiguity of Tradition 1.2 The Death of Myth 2 The GIST 1​—​Three Strata of Early Texts 2.1 Before the Buddha 2.2 The First Discourses 2.3 The Gāthā Theory 2.4 The Earliest Collection 2.5 The First Abhidhamma 2.6 Some Problems 3 The GIST 2​—​The Agreement of the Three Strata 3.1 The Seeds of the Saṁyutta 3.2 The Two Saṁyuttas 3.3 The Root Abhidhamma Topics 3.4 The Three Strata Compared 3.5 The Saṁyutta-Mātikā in the Mahāyāna 4 The GIST 3​—​The Aṅgas 4.1 The Nine and the Twelve 4.2 Sutta, Geyya, Vyākaraṇa 4.3 The Three Aṅgas and the First Discourses 4.4 The Aṅgas and the Vedas 5 Aṅgas in the Nikāyas & Āgamas 5.1 Saṁyutta 5.2 Majjhima 5.3 Dīgha 5.4 Aṅguttara 6 The Evolution of the Truths 6.1 Sanskrit Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta 6.2 Spirals of Elaboration 7 What Happened in the Sattapaṇṇi Cave? 7.1 Conclusion A HISTORY OF MINDFULNESS 8 Introduction to Mindfulness 8.1 Samatha & vipassanā 9 Previous Studies 9.1 Von Hinüber 9.2 Anālayo 9.3 Thích Nhất Hạnh 9.4 Ṭhānissaro 9.5 Thích Minh Châu ...