Of Mud and Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women

A unique blend of personal reflection, creative histories, and interview-based nonfiction that vividly imagines the lives of Buddhist women over 2,500 years.

Of Mud and Lotuses illuminates the hardships, resilience, and creative ways in which Buddhist women have applied the Dharma to daily life—often in ways that history has ignored.

With lyrical storytelling and a perspective informed by decades as a Japanese American scholar of women in Buddhism, Paula Arai conjures the kitchens, temples, ...