Vanessa Sasson

Jun 30, 2024 | tricycle.org | Vanessa Sasson

Now that the solstice has come and gone, we are officially in the dog days of summer 2024. While that could portend wildly different scenarios based on your situation—from sweating it out in a sweltering apartment, office, or workroom to lying on white sand beaches miles away from the ordinary—these Buddhist books will keep you covered for whatever life throws at you.

May 11, 2024 | tricycle.org | Vanessa Sasson

Every November, nearly 10,000 religious studies scholars pour into a different city for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. The meeting in 2016 was held in Texas, and Trump had just been elected President of the United States. I admit I hesitated before boarding my flight out of Canada. Making my rounds through the exhibit hall is one of the most exciting parts of the conference, scanning the numerous publisher booths, laden with the latest books in Buddhist studies.

Mar 8, 2024 | tricycle.org | Vanessa Sasson |James Shaheen

After the Buddha’s enlightenment, his aunt and adoptive mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, asks him to ordain women and welcome them into his new monastic community. The Buddha declines to fulfill her request. But Mahapajapati Gotami doesn’t give up—accompanied by a large gathering of women, she sets out to ask him again. In her new novel, The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women, scholar Vanessa R.

Feb 10, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Vanessa Sasson |Beatrice Marovich

THIS is a wonderful quotation from Gadamer. If you want to understand it, you have to want to understand it. At first reading, it seems trite and obvious, almost a cliché. It is only when you try to think it through—when you acknowledge the inadequacy of your first reading and ask not what position this person holds in your classificatory structure but what reason this person might have had for shaping their sentence in these words, that you see how beautifully it exemplifies what it is saying.

Jul 15, 2023 | tricycle.org | Vanessa Sasson

Now in its 18th year, the annual Sakyadhita International Conference took place in Seoul, South Korea this year, from June 23 to 27. Hosted by the Korean Bhiksuni Association and Sakyadhita Korea, three thousand women came together from all over the world to listen to talks, attend diverse workshops, meditate, chant, and think together. As participants and media alike have already expressed, the conference was brilliantly organized, with many moments to savor and enjoy.