An inspiring and necessary addition to the body of work about modern-day Buddhism.
A British journalist’s account of her yearlong investigation into the lives and motivations of women who chose to become Buddhist nuns.
Throughout her more than 20-year career as a foreign correspondent, Toomey had always been drawn to writing about the courage and compassion of the many women she met. In 2011, she decided to focus her attention on women who sought ordination into the male-dominated world of monastic Buddhism. Her project began as a purely “journalistic endeavor.” However, the deaths of her father and mother soon infused the journey with a need for both “a deeper understanding and a wisdom that would heal.” Toomey started in Nepal, “the land where the Buddha was born,” and worked her way east to west through India, Burma, and Japan before heading west to the United States and Europe. The women she met came from a wide array of backgrounds. Some had fled poverty and violence while others, like the Tibetan princess Choying Khandro, had turned their backs on lives of privilege. Still others had left successful careers as policewomen, pilots, actresses, or writers or marriages and families to find the inner peace and fulfillment that had eluded them. Regardless of the particular Buddhist sect they joined, each of Toomey’s interviewees shared a common devotion to Buddhist teachings and to doing good in the world. Many of them also shared a desire to see women become fully integrated members of a religion that, for the most part, still considered them inferior and subservient to male monks. Intelligent and informative, Toomey’s book reveals the hidden lives of women who have been neglected by Buddhist discourse, and it brings to the fore the contributions that more high-profile nuns, such as Pema Chödrön, have made to the resurgent worldwide interest in Buddhist philosophy.
An inspiring and necessary addition to the body of work about modern-day Buddhism.Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61519-326-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: The Experiment
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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