The Hidden Lamp is a collection of one hundred koans and stories of Buddhist women from the time of the Buddha to the present day. This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In these pages we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.
Each story is accompanied by a reflection by a contemporary woman teacher—personal responses that help bring the old stories alive for readers today—and concluded by a final meditation for the reader, a question from the editors meant to spark further rumination and inquiry. These are the voices of the women ancestors of every contemporary Buddhist.
Bookshop is lucky enough to have four contributors from the book joining us.
The book’s editor, Zenshin Florence Caplow is a Soto Zen priest in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. She has been practicing Vipassana and Zen for twenty-five years, and is a dharma teacher, field botanist, essayist, and editor. She is an itinerant monk, generally found somewhere west of the Rockies. Co-editor Susan Moon has been practicing in the Soto Zen tradition for 35 years, and is a lay teacher with the Everyday Zen Sangha. Her previous books include the cult classic The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi and This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging. Contributor Rev. Daijaku Kinst Ph.D, is co-founder and guiding teacher at Capitola's Ocean Gate Zen Center, was ordained a Soto Zen priest in 1988, trained at San Francisco Zen Center, and was given formal authorization as a teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki in 2005. She is a core faculty member and director of the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, an affiliate school of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. And contributor Shinshu Roberts, co-founder and guiding teacher at Capitola’s Ocean Gate Zen Center, was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 1988 and received from al authorization and a teacher in the Suzuki Roshi lineage in 2005. She also trained in Japan and holds the appointment of Kokusaifukyoshi (International Teacher) with the Soto Zen School in Japan.
Please join us for a wonderful night of conversation and insight with a discussion, reading, signing and Q&A.
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