BUDDHADHARMA: THE PRACTITIONER’S QUARTERLY 9
SHUNDO AOYAMA,
ROSHI, is the highest-
ranking nun in the
history of Soto Zen.
Born in 1933 and or-
dained as a nun at the
age of fifteen, she now
oversees the training of
nuns at three temples
as well as the training
of other shike, or Soto
Zen teachers, through-
out Japan. She is also a
respected expert in tra-
ditional flower arrange-
ment, tea ceremony,
and calligraphy, which
she enjoys teaching to
laypeople.CONTRIBUTORS
STEPHANIE BALKWILL
did her post doctoral
work on female-to-
male sex change in
Buddhist texts; her
more recent work has
focused on the politi-
cal, social, and literary
lives of Buddhist
women in China two
thousand years ago.
She is an assistant pro-
fessor of religion and
culture and East Asian
languages and cultures
at the University of
Winnipeg, where she
teaches such courses as
“Buddhism, Sex, and
the Body.”JAN WILLIS discovered
the dharma while
traveling in Asia in the
seventies. She saw in
Buddhist practice a way
to address the deep
racial wounds of grow-
ing up in the Jim Crow
South and went on to
become a professor of
religion at Wesleyan
University, where she
taught for more than
forty years. A practi-
tioner of Tibetan Bud-
dhism since that first
encounter, she is the
author of Dreaming
Me: Black, Baptist, and
Buddhist—One Wom-
an’s Spiritual Journey.MYOAN GRACE
SCHIRESON is a Soto
Zen priest and presi-
dent of Shogaku Zen
Institute, which offers a
Master of Divinity de-
gree in Zen and Mind-
fulness. A psychologist,
she works with sanghas
that have experienced
sexual misconduct and
abuse. Her latest book,
Naked in the Zendo:
Stories of Uptight Zen,
Wild-Ass Zen, and
Enlightenment Wher-
ever You Are, is forth-
coming in November
from Shambhala.(PHOTOCREDI
TS,
LE
FT—RIGHT)DAI-E
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ATRICI
A^ BENNAGEROSHI|^ WAN
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