122 BUDDHADHARMA: THE PRACTITIONER’S QUARTERLY
Chodron. Compiled and co-authored by Thubten Chodron, the
founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey in Newport, Washington, this
series builds on decades of teachings by the Dalai Lama to provide a
comprehensive step-by-step guide to lamrim, “the complete path of
enlightenment,” for a non-Tibetan audience. Together, they encour-
age readers to integrate key points of the teachings into their daily
experiences, such as reviewing the three characteristics of dependent
arising and applying that to the existence of a material object in our
lives.
“Where does my physical body begin and end?” asks Sharon Suh.
“What about my cultural body?” In Occupy This Body: A Buddhist
Memoir (Sumeru 2019), Suh, a professor of theology and religious
studies at Seattle University and a popular speaker on feminism and
Buddhism, opens up about her struggles with body image, race, and
gender growing up as a Korean American in Long Island in the sev-
enties and feeling out of place—both at home and elsewhere. Her
story is far-reaching, but a central thread is how Buddhist practice
helped Suh overcome her body-image issues and disordered eating.
Through the practice of Buddhist silent meditation, she was able to
embrace, appreciate, and feel at home in her body. Meditation, Suh
tells us, can be “a radical act of freedom and self-love” through
which we “learn to occupy other spaces beyond the racialized, gen-
dered ones.”
In the tradition of the ancient Therigatha, Let the Light Shine:
Reflections from Theravada Bhikkhunis (Awaken 2019) presents
essays by more than twenty contemporary bhikkhunis from Asia and
the West, who offer diverse perspectives on the meaning and applica-
tions of Theravada Buddhist teachings. Some give their unique inter-
pretations of the dharma on such topics as the repulsiveness of the
body; Bhikkhuni Satima Theri recounts, after meditating on a corpse,
the experience that “there was no concept of male or female...At
that moment, there seemed to be no attachment, no ill will, and no
delusion in me.” Others, like Bhikkhuni Nirodha Theri, share their
insights into renunciation and the monastic life—recalling her ten-
precept nun ordination, she writes, “An indescribably unique expe-
rience happened during my ordination—of linking up, as though
being received into the pure sangha realm.”