A Mother's Day Remembrance - Mahaprajapati Gautami:
The Buddha's Extraordinary Adoptive Mother
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Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. Drawing from ancient Sanskrit and Pali sources, Wendy Garling will present stories of this extraordinary woman based on the material covered in her award-winning book, The Women Who Raised the Buddha (2021, Shambhala Publications).
Garling’s talk will introduce many little known stories of Mahaprajapati’s life, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. She reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.
Garling’s talk will introduce many little known stories of Mahaprajapati’s life, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. She reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.
About Wendy Garling:
Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA specializing in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications) and the award-winning The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: the Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati (2021, Shambhala Publications).
A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Wendy has studied with teachers of different schools and lineages, foremost her refuge lama His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, her kind root lama, the late Sera Je Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama whom she first met in 1979. From 1991-92 she coordinated the Georgia chapter of the International Year of Tibet, helping to bring many Tibetan cultural and religious events to Atlanta and Emory University. Pilgrimage has played an important role in Wendy’s life: in 2007 she journeyed to the sites of women saints in Tibet, and in 2011 and 2018 to sacred sites of the Buddha in India. Most notably, in 2023 she led a pilgrimage of 25 lay and monastic women from Lumbini, Nepal to Vaishali, India, “In the Footsteps of Gautami and the First Buddhist Women,” retracing the sacred journey of those 500 women for the first time, after 2,500 years. Wendy's dream is to bring back the stories of Buddhism’s first women, reawaken their voices, and ensure that they are not just remembered but valorized as integral to the roots of Buddhism.
Wendy Garling is a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA specializing in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications) and the award-winning The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: the Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati (2021, Shambhala Publications).
A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Wendy has studied with teachers of different schools and lineages, foremost her refuge lama His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, her kind root lama, the late Sera Je Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama whom she first met in 1979. From 1991-92 she coordinated the Georgia chapter of the International Year of Tibet, helping to bring many Tibetan cultural and religious events to Atlanta and Emory University. Pilgrimage has played an important role in Wendy’s life: in 2007 she journeyed to the sites of women saints in Tibet, and in 2011 and 2018 to sacred sites of the Buddha in India. Most notably, in 2023 she led a pilgrimage of 25 lay and monastic women from Lumbini, Nepal to Vaishali, India, “In the Footsteps of Gautami and the First Buddhist Women,” retracing the sacred journey of those 500 women for the first time, after 2,500 years. Wendy's dream is to bring back the stories of Buddhism’s first women, reawaken their voices, and ensure that they are not just remembered but valorized as integral to the roots of Buddhism.
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This event is based on Wendy Garling's book, The Women Who Raised the Buddha
(Shambhala, 2021). We encourage you to purchase this amazing book. Order direct from Shambhala here: www.shambhala.com/the-woman-who-raised-the-buddha-15723.html |
Women of Wisdom:
Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women
Over the course of a year, Women of Wisdom: Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women will highlight and celebrate women teachers and practitioners in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The programs in this series spotlight the history and impact of women in Buddhism and share the wisdom stewarded by a range of female lineage holders, teachers, scholars, monastics, and lay practitioners.
The series coincides with the 35th anniversary of the founding, by two women, of Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Studies in San Francisco. Women of Wisdom: Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women hopes to contribute to ongoing efforts to support global programming featuring female Buddhist teachers and scholars and presenting topics of importance to women on the Buddhist path.
Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women
Over the course of a year, Women of Wisdom: Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women will highlight and celebrate women teachers and practitioners in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The programs in this series spotlight the history and impact of women in Buddhism and share the wisdom stewarded by a range of female lineage holders, teachers, scholars, monastics, and lay practitioners.
The series coincides with the 35th anniversary of the founding, by two women, of Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Studies in San Francisco. Women of Wisdom: Celebrating the Living Legacy of Buddhist Women hopes to contribute to ongoing efforts to support global programming featuring female Buddhist teachers and scholars and presenting topics of importance to women on the Buddhist path.
Registration:
Advanced registration is required.
We offer all Dharma teachings and center events on a “dana” basis. This means we’re grateful for your generosity but there is no required cost to attend and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Suggested donation amounts are provided, and we welcome you to offer what you can to help us sustain our programming and make the dharma and events like this possible. And of course, ordained sangha (ordained nuns and monks) are always welcome free of charge.
If you're not donating at this time but would like to attend, please email [email protected].
Advanced registration is required.
We offer all Dharma teachings and center events on a “dana” basis. This means we’re grateful for your generosity but there is no required cost to attend and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Suggested donation amounts are provided, and we welcome you to offer what you can to help us sustain our programming and make the dharma and events like this possible. And of course, ordained sangha (ordained nuns and monks) are always welcome free of charge.
If you're not donating at this time but would like to attend, please email [email protected].