Daughters of Emptiness

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“This beautiful book testifies to the power of Buddhist practice to nourish the human spirit even when war, physical hardship, class discrimination, and oppression seem insurmountable.”—Turning Wheel

DAUGHTERS OF EMPTINESS

Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns

Beata Grant

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 collection:

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 tree:
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.

—Chan Master Jingnuo

book information
  • Paperback
  • 176 pages, 6.00 x 9.00 inches
  • $20.95
  • ISBN 9780861713622
  • ebook
  • 176 pages
  • $17.99
  • ISBN 9780861718221
about the author
Daughters of Emptiness

Beata Grant is professor of Chinese and Religious Studies (Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures) at Washington University. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Other books by Beata Grant:
Zen Echoes

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