Celebrating a Life Well Lived: In Memory of Dhamma Sister Mettapanna Nancy Gil

All conditioned things are impermanent,

arising and passing away;

when this rising and passing also ceases,

this then, is the bliss of perfect peace.
***

May 24, 2014

Dear Friends,

I haven't written to you for a long time now it seems. For those of you whom I haven't seen recently, I hope the transition of springtime into summer is finding you well, the path unfolding where you are, beautifully, in the way that is just right for you.

Interviewing Buddhist Women: Lama Willa Miller

Harsha Menon

Lama Willa leads a retreat at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge.

Lama Willa Miller is a Tibetan Buddhist lama and scholar living and teaching in New England, USA. She is the founder of the Natural Dharma Fellowship nonprofit and Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, a Buddhist retreat center in Springfield, New Hampshire. Under the direction of her teachers Kalu Rinpoche and Lama Norlha Rinpoche, she completed two three-year intensive retreats and is the author of three books. Harsha Menon sat down to talk with Lama Willa on a cold winter day in January.

Over cups of tea, they discussed the role of women in the Dharma and how this is an auspicious time as a result of emerging opportunities. For example, recently in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition women have, for the first time, been able to study toward the degree of Geshe-ma, a rigorous monastic training, equivalent to a PhD in Buddhist philosophy. This degree was previously only available to Buddhist monks. This, along with a worldwide engagement of initiatives and interests in development for Buddhist women, gives Lama Willa a sense of hope:

My hope is we will look back on this . . . block of fifty years and say that was the time when things changed and truly there became a situation of equal opportunity for women in Buddhism.

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