Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism
Simmer-Brown (chair, religious studies, Naropa Univ.) has produced a comprehensive, scholarly, and intriguing study of "dakini," the feminine principle in Tibetan Buddhism. She defines dakini as a symbol "who personifies in Tibetan Buddhism the spiritual process of surrendering expectation and concept, revealing limitless space and pristine awareness." The methodology she employs in her study includes both scholarly preparation and training in Vajrayana Buddhist practice traditions. She is sensitive to and articulate about feminist issues related to her subject and on this basis finds the prevailing modes of feminist and Jungian paradigms lacking in there assessment of dakini. Therefore, she proposes more appropriate methodologies that draw on the disciplines of history of religions and gender studies. As she reviews the Indian historical background of dakini, she is careful to differentiate dakini in Tibetan tantric literature from dakini's "Hindu tantric cousins." While Thinley Norbu's Magic Dance: The Display of the Self-Nature of the Five Wisdom Dakinis is more poetic, Simmer-Brown's work is more scholarly and focused. It also includes an examination of the hagiographic lore about dakini and ends with a description of dakini as the protector of tantric teachings and midwife of the transmission of teachings. Recommended as a landmark study which will be a useful addition to any library's holdings on Tibetan Buddhism. David Bourquin, California State Univ., San BernardinoCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.