Storied Companions
Cancer, Trauma, and Discovering Guides for Living in Buddhist Narratives
Published on 13. August 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-1-61429-575-4 (ISBN)
Description
"Facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Karen Derris-professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner-turned to books. Crashing into impermanence, "why me" is unhelpful, but "when" is crucial. Reading stories and putting herself into the stories turns these ancient Buddhist stories into companions-into guides for the parts of life that don't have guides. Interweaves her memoir with stories from the Buddhist canon-interweaves herself into those stories-to find ways to live with the notion that she won't live, ways to cope even though, as she puts it, she is crashing into impermanence honest, powerful, insightful, illuminating. Takes familiar stories and illuminates them, finding ways to make them immediate and real to her living experience. "With my diagnosis of stage IV brain cancer, I no longer observe the truth of impermanence from a critical, analytical distance. I am crashing into it, or it into me"--
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Somerville
United States
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
342 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61429-575-4 (9781614295754)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dr. Karen Derris is a scholar of South and Southeast Asian Buddhist traditions and professor of religious studies at the University of Redlands. Her research focuses on the intersection of literature and feminist ethics in pre-modern Buddhist traditions, particularly focusing upon the central importance of community in Buddhist ethical and spiritual development. Dr. Derris received her PhD from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 2000.