Woman Awake Women Practicing Buddhism

Because women have been conditioned to live according to traditional feminine values—conformity, passivity, and surrender of the self—they often feel powerless to transform their lives and afraid to lose their sense of worth. In Woman Awake, Christina Feldman suggests that it is possible for women to break out of their negative patterns and accept themselves as they really are. With a growing awarenss of the dignity of all life and its connection with them, women can overcome the social conditioning and myth-making that overwhelm and oppress them.

For those women new to Buddhist meditation, Christina Feldman offers sensitive and valuable guidelines on breathing and relaxation—stressing, above all, that learning to understand, appreciate, and value themselves is the first step toward women's creative and joyful integration with the world.

In the early 1970s, Christina Feldman spent several years in Asia, studying and training in the Buddhist meditation tradition. She has led insight meditation retreats in the West since 1974. A cofounder of Gaia House, in Devon, England, she is a regular teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California. In addition, she leads retreats in Europe.

She is the coauthor (with Jack Kornfield) of Soul Food and the author of Quest of the Warrior Woman, Ways of Meditation, and Buddhist Path to Simplicity, as well as Silence and Woman Awake. She lives in Totnes, Devon, England.