In the Shade of the Green Willow: Poems and Reflections of a Buddhist Woman in Modern China

Through verse, the rural world becomes the landscape for a woman’s resolute spiritual quest, set against the restless currents of twentieth-century China.

Twentieth-century China was rife with political and spiritual turmoil as it sought to shake off the shackles of its imperial past and move along the path of modernization. In the midst of this turmoil, Zhang Ruzhao (later ordained as Tiantai Master Benkong)—a prolific Buddhist, feminist, literary, and political figure—became disillusioned ...