A Journey with Buddha’s Daughters.
‘People think that Engaged Buddhism is only about social work and stopping war. But at the same time that you stop the war outside, you have to stop the war inside yourself.’ Sister Chân Không.
It took Christine Toomey two decades of covering wars around the world, looking outward rather than inward, for her to appreciate that any true understanding of conflict can only come from facing up to our own inner battles.
A chance meeting with a Buddhist nun in India made a deep impression on her. It sent her on a journey that lasted two years, in which time she covered over 60,000 miles, across continents, to discover more about the women who were embarking on the Buddhist spiritual path. She follows a trail across Asia, Europe and North America and thereby covers the history, past tradition and modern practice of women who become Buddhist nuns.
The book has three interwoven strands: the path of Buddhism from East to West, the individual paths taken by women to becoming nuns and the third her own personal path to healing the grief she felt on losing both her parents within a short time.
She converses with highly educated women who have had successful and stimulating careers but have found something lacking in their life that sent them searching for something more. Many have left marriages and older children behind on their journey of the spiritual path. Those she interviews include an acclaimed novelist, a princess, a former BBC journalist, a Washington political aid and a concert violinist.
There are many tales of great suffering, hardship, and violence that women have had to escape from, and overcome, to follow their calling. That they have endured and found inner peace is inspirational.
It is quite simply the most fascinating book I have read this year and I felt strangely calm whilst reading it. There is much to be found among the pages, of wisdom and of coming to terms with things you cannot change.
A foreign correspondent and feature writer for the Sunday Times for more than twenty years, Christine Toomey has reported extensively from Latin America, the Middle East and throughout Europe. Her journalism has been syndicated globally and she has twice won Amnesty International Awards for Magazine Story of the Year.
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