Women of Wisdom

This is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to hear more about women practitioners. These biographies provide good models for spiritual development in a female body. I very much appreciated Tsultrim Allione's own story, which she goes into in detail. She speaks with a good amount of honesty and understanding.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to hear more about women practitioners. These biographies provide good models that are often lacking from traditional religious sources.

There is a hunger among women practitioners for the stories of other women who have gone on before them. Often these stories have been lost or over time turned to silence. Tsultrim Allione, founder of Tara Mandala, a 600 acree retreat center in South West Colorado, sets out with this book to reclaim some of those lost voices. She was initiated on this journey with the death of her daughter from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Prior to becoming a mother to four children, Tsultrim had been one of the first American women to take vows. For four years she lived in the Himalayas as a nun devoted to in depth practice. Later she returned her vows and became a mother and with the death of one of her twins began the search for stories to sustain her during unbearable times. In Women of Wisdom she uncovers and chronicles the stories of several of the more well-known women practioners, saints, and delogues, but what is particularly compelling is her own story. She writes openly and honesty with remarkable ease. It is a must for anyone who wrestles with integrating Buddhist practice with the demands of a modern life.

This is a lovely collection of sacred biographies of Tibetan Buddhist yoginis. The author, a former Buddhist nun, provides an extensive introduction including an autobiographical account-virtually a 7th biography. She provides much valuable information about the Buddha families, biography vs. sacred biography or hagiography, and Tibetan traditions and terminology such as delogs (people who die and come back to life), Togdens (Tibetan yogis), etc. The six sacred biographies included here vary considerably in length (2 are quite long and 4 are rather short) and in nature (some include much more hyperbole and others are more historical). The author states on p. 54 that "Goodness is not necessarily truth." She also provides a prolog and extremely valuable endnotes for each chapter, suggesting that (p. 215) the reason for embedding teachings into a biography is to make them come to life. She also provides psychological explanations for a number of otherwise fantastic descriptions and activities, frequently based upon the writings of Jung's disciple Esther Harding: p. 147: "When we think of a demon, we generally think of an external spirit which attacks us, but Machig realized the true nature of demons is the internal functioning of the ego...all four demons are thought-processes which block a state of clear, unattached awareness." p. 195 note 62: "If we understand the serpentine underwater Nagas as a manifestation of Machig's unconscious, as part of her own mind, this assumption being based on the idea that our environment is a manifestation of our karma and our own projection." Other contemporary books support such a view: Loren Pederson's "Dark Hearts," George Weinberg's "Invisible Masters," & John Sanford's "Invisible Partners." Further, she also clears up the ambiguity about Tibetan Buddhist practitioners consuming meat: p. 194 note 54: "the Buddha did not teach strict vegetarianism, but rather that all meat one eats should have passed through at least three hands before a Buddhist should consume it...if a Tantric practitioner eats the meat of an animal with awareness and transcendent insight into the true nature of reality, this creates a connection between the animal and the yogi, and therefore the animal will have a much better chance of reaching a higher rebirth than if it had not been killed and offered to the yogi or yogini. Also...it symbolizes going beyond the limitations of vows and conventional `goodness,' and transformation of poison and dangerous substances into a means for enlightenment. Therefore a big piece of meant would be an appropriate offering for a Tantric initiation." Interestingly, this practice parallels that of Kabbalah where practitioners raise the spiritual level of animals by eating them with proper kavvanah (mystical intention).

There is a time when women shall have names. The time of consciouness rising, when the wisdom of all life perceiving will be received by humankind. This text will be recognized - by those who sense that they are called - as an entry point to the evolution of consciousness found in the divine feminine; the source of all inspiration to the Buddhas. Those who feel a hunger for echoes of the great women spiritual leaders of Buddhism will find great inspiration in this book. It is a personal, fascinating, warm, and inspirational book. The stories are translated by Tsultrim and her Tibetean associates with a tremendous respect for the meaning in the original sacred texts. I recommend this work highly to anyone who desires to connect with Buddhism's sacred center, the Prajna Paramita. I recommend it to anyone who perceives that Buddhism has misplaced its joyously empty center, and who senses a chance for a more complete knowing of their own divine spirituality.