num_pages: 208
description: Women played major roles in the history of Buddhist China, but given the paucity of the remaining records, their voices have all but faded. In Daughters of Emptiness , Beata Grant renders a great service by recovering and translating the enchanting verse - by turns assertive, observant, devout - of forty-eight nuns from sixteen centuries of imperial China. This selection of poems, along with the brief biographical accounts that accompany them, affords readers a glimpse into the extraordinary diversity and sometimes startling richness of these women's lives.A sample poem for this stunning The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward,Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,But Spring pays no attention to me at all.Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.How should I not know, one who has left the world,And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?In the garden there grows a rosary-plum Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.- Chan Master Jingnuo
language: English
title: Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns
titlecomplete: Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns
genres: Religion, Buddhism, Spirituality, China, Nonfiction, Poetry, Asia
ratings_count: 58
publisher: Wisdom Publications