Rita M. Gross

A bold and provocative work from the late preeminent feminist scholar, which challenges men and women alike to free themselves from attachment to gender. At the heart of Buddhism is the notion of egolessness--"forgetting the self"--as the path to awakening. In fact, attachment to views of any kind only leads to more suffering for ourselves and others. And what has a greater hold on people's imaginations or limits them more, asks Rita Gross, than ideas about biological sex and what she calls "the prison of gender roles"? Yet if clinging to gender identity does, indeed, create obstacles for us, why does the prison of gender roles remain so inescapable? Gross uses the lenses of Buddhist philosophy to deconstruct the powerful concept of gender and its impact on our lives. In revealing the inadequacies involved in clinging to gender identity, she illuminates the suffering that results from clinging to any kind of identity at all.

Rita Gross and Rosemary Radford Ruether have long been known for their feminist contributions to Buddhism and Christianity, respectively. In this book, they talk candidly about what these traditions mean to them in both their liberating as well as problematic aspects. Throughout the book, their life stories provide the rich soil, perhaps even the rationale, for their theological and spiritual development. Despite the marked differences in their life histories and their respective religious faiths, Gross and Radford Ruether achieve surprising unanimity on the paramount issue: what engaged Buddhism and enlightened Christianity can offer in the struggle to create a new future for the planet.

Rita M. Gross has long been acknowledged as a founder in the field of feminist theology. One of the earliest scholars in religious studies to discover how feminism affects that discipline, she is recognized as preeminent in Buddhist feminist theology. The essays in "A Garland of Feminist Reflections" represent the major aspects of her work and provide an overview of her methodology in women's studies in religion and feminism. The introductory article, written specifically for this volume, summarizes the conclusions Gross has reached about gender and feminism after forty years of searching and exploring, and the autobiography, also written for this volume, narrates how those conclusions were reached. These articles reveal the range of scholarship and reflection found in Rita M. Gross' work and demonstrate how feminist scholars in the 1970s shifted the paradigm away from an androcentric model of humanity and forever changed the way we study religion.

Continuum congratulates Rita M. Gross on being the recipient of the 1999 Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award.As a practicing Buddhist for over 20 years, Rita Gross is concerned with how Eastern wisdom traditions transform our lives, and are themselves transformed by contact with the wisdom of the West.Rita Gross considers lifestyle issues, from conception to death and grieving; social issues such as population control, work and family, and environmental ethics; and theological issues such as the use of goddess images in Buddhism, and several fascinating practices from Gross's own Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist tradition.

This book surveys both the part women have played in Buddhism historically and what Buddhism might become in its post-patriarchal future. The author completes the Buddhist historical record by discussing women, usually absent from histories of Buddhism, and she provides the first feminist analysis of the major concepts found in Buddhist religion. Gross demonstrates that the core teachings of Buddhism promote gender equity rather than male dominance, despite the often sexist practices found in Buddhist institutions throughout history.