The Buddha's Wife

“In this creative, groundbreaking rendering, the relational “˜Yin’ of Buddhism, so often absent, is brought beautifully to life. The teachings are clear, vibrant, and relevant.”

—Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

It is said that the Buddha, on the morning of his only child’s birth, left his wife and son to “go forth” to seek enlightenment, without saying goodbye. What do we know of his wife Yasodhara and his son Rahula?

The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story of Yasodhara—”She who stays”—and her community, to the forefront, offering a spiritual parable and portrait of these compelling and compassionate characters. The Readers Companion offers practical applications of their discoveries and teachings for our modern lives.

The Buddha’s Wife is written in two parts: the first is an imagined historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, as she might have told it. The second is a reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern reader. Her story offers readers a spiritual-relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives. It offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, wisdom, and awakening beyond the solitary heroic journey of the awakened “One,” to the possibility of the awakened “We.” Our violent, divided world is crying out for the cultivation of this Relational Path.

A book signing will follow the talk.

About the Speakers

Samuel Shem is of is the author of two medical classics, The House of God and Mount Misery. A graduate of Harvard College and Medical School as Stephen Bergman M.D., he was on the faculty for 25 years. He and his wife, Janet Surrey, wrote a play Bill W. and Dr. Bob about the relationship between the two men who founded Alcoholics Anonymous. Janet Surrey, PhD is a practicing clinical psychologist and an Insight Dialogue Teacher and faculty member of Metta’s Relational Insight Meditation Program.

Shem and Surrey are also authors of a nonfiction book, We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men (1999, Basic Books) which received the 1999 Paradigm Shift Award of the Boston Interfaith Counseling Service, and a curriculum for middle/high school students, Making Connections: Building Gender Dialogue and Community in Secondary School (2007, Educators for Social Responsibility).