NEW E-BOOK: “Making Her-Story: Female Lineages” (Ḍākinī Day/Christmas Day Festive Offering,free download)

“The companion who plunges your neck into the yoke,
At first, a smiling, divine man,
In the middle, a black-faced demon,
At the end, a bull ready to beat you.
Thinking thus, melancholy arises.
So, this girl shall practice divine Dharma, and
Be a companion of vajra-sibling friends!” –Saley O’s Song

“Other women merely speak of longing for Dharma, yet
She has faith from the core of the heart!
Other women have faith in ornaments and decoration, yet
She has longing for the essence of the three times, absent of good and bad.
My reasoning is inferior but determination is huge!” —Yeshe Tsogyel’s song

“Not only are the Buddhist past and Western scholarship on Buddhism thoroughly androcentric; contemporary Buddhism itself, both Asian and Western, is unrelenting in its ongoing androcentrism.” (Rita Gross: 1995).

For Ḍākinī Day today, and for the Yuletide Festive/Christmas Day too, am happy to offer a freely downloadable E-Book Making ‘Her’-Story: Female Lineages (pdf here). It is a compilation into a single document of the ‘Female Lineages’ section of the website, the research, translations and articles connected to  female lineages in Buddhist and Tibetan Himalayan Vajrayana traditions.  I do not have a team of editors, proofreaders etc., so apologies for the occasional formatting or typos! I plan to do another e-book of the Female Principle section of the website, which looks at women, gender and Buddhism more generally.

The e-book is not an academic, scholarly, ‘peer-reviewed’ collection, but simply an e-book/compilation of the articles (a mix of scholarship, translation and music) for a general audience, that can be easily downloaded and read as a file. The contents of the e-book are listed below.  My aim in originally creating these articles was to bring some of these women and their lives to life in a more visual and musical format, off the PhD and academic ‘dry and wordy pages’.

The largest chapters are those on Guru Padmasambhava’s main human consorts, Mandāravā and Yeshe Tsogyel. There are also chapters on the Buddha Shakyamuni’s mother, Māyā, his main female students, Ārya Khsema and Utpalavarnā, Princess Lakṣmīṅkarā and Vajrayoginī, Chinese Empresses Wengcheng and Xu, Tīlopa’s female teachers/consorts, and Milarepa’s students such as Saley O and Rechungma.

Then also women from the Nyingma and Jonang lineages, such as the female treasure-revealer of ‘Gathered Secrets of the Dakinis’ (Khandro Sangdu) Jomo Menmo and Kunzang Trinley Wangmo (Zhentong lineage holder and consort of Tāranātha). As well as the renowned Chod founder and lineage holder, Machig Labdron. There are three contemporary women, two British women who both became Tibetan Buddhist nuns in the Kagyu lineages taking vows from the 16th Karmapa, Freda Bedi and Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. As well as the Tibetan woman, Tare Lhamo from Larung Gar Monastery in Tibet, who was discussed in the Yeshe Tsogyel podcast, with Dr. Jue Liang last year.

There are some original music and art creations too, such as in the Songs of Yeshe Tsogyel, I  composed a musical rendition of it, music and vocals, for people to enjoy and sing along with for inspiration if they wish.  Also, an original commission thangka artwork, with the female teachers, consorts and lineage holders of the Kagyu forefathers lineage from Tīlopa down to Milarepa, in an effort to make visible women in our practice and refuge tree visualisations.

In the chapter on Tilopa’s female teachers and consorts, I also challenge contemporary depictions of women by scholars as ‘dollybird’ pretty young things and also playfully title an article about Yeshe Tsogyel and her male consorts, as a ‘cougar’ (modern-day slang) challenging sexism and ageism in Vajrayana (and in worldly contexts too) but also about her time spent in what is now called Bhutan.

Of course, these are just a selection of women, and there are many who have not yet been written about. However, I hope some of these articles will provoke some new ideas, thoughts, debate and ways of thinking about some of these topics, in ways that have not been written about or considered before!

Music? Seasons greetings reel from  the heart, from Adele Tomlin/Dakini Translations, Snowflake by Kate Bush and Flying Dakini by Yungchen Lhamo.

Adele Tomlin, 25th December 2024. Copyright.

CONTENTS

Introduction. 4
Chapter One: Achi Chokyi Drolma 5
Chapter Two: Ārya Kshema 17
Chapter Three: Bhaddā-Kāpilanī 23
Chapter Four: Chinese Empress Wengcheng 32
Chapter Five: Chinese Empress Wu 46
Chapter Six: Machig Drupe Gyalmo 53
Chapter Seven: Freda Bedi 63
Chapter Eight: Gelongma Palmo and Nyung Ne 76
Chapter Nine: Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo 89
Chapter Ten: Jomo Menmo 93
Chapter Eleven: Machig Jobum  97
Chapter Twelve: Machig Labdron 101
Chapter Thirteen: Mandāravā 124
Chapter Fourteen: Queen Māya Buddha’s Mother 148
Chapter Fifteen: Lady Niguma 161
Chapter Sixteen: Rechungma (Milarepa’s Female Disciples I) 170
Rechungma’s Song of “Fifteen Realisations” 170
Chapter Seventeen: Saley O (Milarepa’s Female Disciples II) 174
Chapter Eighteen: Kunga Trinley Wangmo 187
Chapter Nineteen:  Princess Lakṣmīṅkarā and Vajrayoginī 198
Chapter Twenty: Tilopa’s Female Teachers 227
Chapter Twenty-One: The Sakya Jetsunmas, a family lineage 241
Chapter Twenty-Two:  Utpalavarnā 249
Chapter Twenty-Three: Yeshe Tsogyel 255