Author: Janet Surrey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 158270418X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
As the category of women’s spirituality continues to grow, The Buddha’s Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment. What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodhara’s journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and “ordinary” relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodhara’s experience speaks of “The Path of Right Relation,” of achieving awareness not alone but together with others. The Buddha’s Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, and the second part is a “how-to” reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.
Author: Gabriel Constans
Publisher: Robert Reed Pub
ISBN: 9781934759295
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 186
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Book Description
Buddha's Wife is a novel about compassion, inspiration and forgiveness.What happened to Yasodhara and her infant son son, Rahula, after her husband (Siddhartha) left her sleeping in the middle of the night to seek enlightenment?As Yasodhara lies close to death and shares her experiences as a young girl, a wife, a parent and then a nun, her son Rahula, who has been in self-imposed exile in Sri Lanka, attempts a perilous journey with his wife and child to reach his mother before she dies and releases the secrets about his father that he's kept buried inside. Will Rahula and the other woman in Siddhartha's life reach Yasodhara in time to ask for forgiveness? Can anyone ever forgive the unforgivable?Buddha's Wife tells a fascinating story, little known in the west, about the woman whom Buddha left behind. Gabriel Constans focuses the reader's attention on the strong and complicated women who surrounded Buddha and makes us re-think the nature of spiritual life.-Chitra Divakaruni
Author: Vanessa R. Sasson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135016318X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
By combining the spirit of fiction with the fabulism of Indian mythology and in-depth academic research, Vanessa R. Sasson shares the evocative story of the Buddha from the perspective of a forgotten woman: Yasodhara, the Buddha's wife. Although often marginalized, Yasodhara's narrative here comes to life. Written with a strong feminist voice, we encounter Yasodhara as a fiercely independent, passionate and resilient individual. We witness her joys and sorrows, her expectations and frustrations, her fairy-tale wedding, and her overwhelming devastation at the departure of her beloved. It is through her eyes that we witness Siddhattha's slow transformation, from a sheltered prince to a deeply sensitive young man. On the way, we see how the gods watch over the future Buddha from the clouds, how the king and his ministers try to keep the suffering of the world from him and how he eventually renounces the throne, his wife and newly-born son to seek enlightenment. Along with a foreword from Wendy Doniger, the book includes a scholarly introduction to Yasodhara's narrative and offers extensive notes along with study questions, to help readers navigate the traditional literature in a new way, making this an essential book for anyone wanting to learn about Buddhist narratives.
Author: Vanessa R. Sasson
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
ISBN: 9789387693715
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
A long time ago, in a far-off kingdom, a boy and a girl, born on the same day, were destined to be together--and then painfully wrenched apart. The boy was Siddhattha, heir to the Sakya kingdom and the future Buddha; the girl was the beautiful and precocious Yasodhara, his friend who became his loving wife. In this exquisitely crafted narrative, we encounter Yasodhara as a fiercely independent, passionate and resilient individual. We witness her joys and sorrows, her expectations and frustrations, her fairy-tale wedding, and her overwhelming devastation at the departure of her beloved. It is through her eyes that we witness Siddhattha's slow transformation, from a sheltered prince to a deeply sensitive young man. On the way, we see how the gods watch over the future Buddha from the clouds, how the king and his ministers try to keep the suffering of the world from him and how he eventually renounces the throne, his wife and newly-born son to seek enlightenment. Resurrecting a forgotten woman from the origin stories of the Buddha, Vanessa R. Sasson combines the spirit of fiction and the fabulism of Indian mythology with impeccable scholarship, to tell the evocative and deeply moving story of an extraordinary life.
Author:
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438428375
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 117
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Book Description
What about Buddha's wife? We all know that Prince Siddhartha left his wife and infant son to begin his journey to enlightenment. The Pali canon does not mention the woman he left behind. Yasodharā enters the commentarial tradition around the first century CE and lives on in the folk tradition, growing from a shadowy figure to a nun and arahat (an Enlightened One), even gaining magical powers. In this book, Ranjini Obeyesekere offers a translation of two works from Sri Lanka on this intriguing figure. The Yasodharāvata (The Story of Yasodharā) is a folk poem, whose best-known verses are Yasodharā's lament over the departure of her husband. The Yasodharāpadānaya (The Sacred Biography of Yasodharā) is an account of Yasodharā as a nun capable of miracles, who has traveled through saṃsāra with the Bodhisattva, and who is praised by him. Obeyesekere places these works within their historical and literary context and provides a glossary of Buddhist terms.
Author: Janet Surrey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476710198
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
As the category of women’s spirituality continues to grow, The Buddha’s Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment. What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodhara’s journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and “ordinary” relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodhara’s experience speaks of “The Path of Right Relation,” of achieving awareness not alone but together with others. The Buddha’s Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, and the second part is a “how-to” reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.
Author: Barbara McHugh, PhD
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
ISBN: 1948626241
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
"This engrossing exploration of gender dynamics, identity, and the spiritual quest for meaning will appeal to Buddhists and general readers alike." —Publishers Weekly “This is an impressive tapestry of history, spiritual philosophy, and literary drama and an edifying look at the patriarchal limitations of Buddhism’s genesis...An intelligently conceived and artistically executed reconsideration of religious history.” —Kirkus Reviews “Bride of the Buddha is an immersive novel about the founding of Buddhism, told in the voice of a woman who would not be excluded from the spiritual quest, nor from the presence of the man whom she loved.” —ForeWord Magazine This is the story of Yasodhara, the abandoned wife of the Buddha. Facing society’s challenges, she transforms her rage into devotion to the path of liberation. The page-turner about a woman’s struggle in an unapologetic religious patriarchy, Bride of the Buddha offers a penetrating perspective on the milieu of the Buddha.
Author: Vanessa R. Sasson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789387693692
Category : Biographical fiction, Indic (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Author: Samrat Upadhyay
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547488408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 453
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Book Description
A novel of love and political upheaval, in which “Kathmandu is as specific and heartfelt as Joyce’s Dublin” (San Francisco Chronicle). In Buddha’s Orphans, Nepal’s political upheavals of the past century serve as a backdrop to the story of an orphan boy, Raja, and the girl he is fated to love, Nilu, a daughter of privilege. Their love scandalizes both of their families—and the novel takes readers across the globe and through several generations. This engrossing, unconventional love story explores the ways that events of the past, even those we are ignorant of, inevitably haunt the present. It is also a brilliant depiction of Nepali society from the Whiting Award–winning author of Arresting God in Kathmandu. “[Upadhyay is] a Buddhist Chekhov.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Upadhyay . . . [illuminates] the shadow corners of his characters’ psyches, as well as the complex social and political realities of life in Nepal, with equal grace.” —Elle “[Upadhyay’s] characters linger. They are captured with such concise, illuminating precision that one begins to feel that they just might be real.” —The Christian Science Monitor “Absorbing . . . Beautifully told.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Author: Susan Piver
Publisher: Lionheart Press, a division of the Open Heart Project
ISBN: 1732277613
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
"Susan Piver consistently offers what so many of us seek: A generous, caring, loving teacher, someone with an open heart and a clear mind, eager to help us find our own way forward." —Seth Godin, author of Linchpin Broken hearts, resentment, affairs, divorce. Why is it so hard to make relationships work? New York Times bestselling author and mindfulness expert Susan Piver applies classic Buddhist wisdom to modern romance, including her own long-term relationship, to show that ancient philosophies have timeless—and unexpected—wisdom on how to love. The Four Noble Truths of Love will challenge the expectations you have about dating, sex, and romance, liberating you from the habits, traumas, and expectations that have been holding back your relationships. This mindful approach toward love will help you open your heart fearlessly, deepen communications with your partner, increase your compassion and resilience, and lead you toward a path of true happiness. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain: expansive, real love for yourself and others.
