Overview

Buddhist teachings and heart-centered practices from the ""feminine paradigm"" to embrace receptivity and bring more balance to your life, relationships, and the world. Buddhist teachings and heart-centered practices from the ""feminine paradigm"" to embrace receptivity and bring more balance to your life, relationships, and the world. With deeply thoughtful, lyrical prose, this book invites readers to engage with the world from a unique perspective that encourages feeling, intuitive understanding, embodiment, interdependence, and sacredness. Weaving together classical Theravada Buddhist teachings and mindfulness practices, the book teaches us when and how to channel our receptive and active orientations-sometimes called the feminine and masculine paradigms-to feel more at home in ourselves and the world and drop more deeply into the Buddhist teachings on suffering and happiness. Rebecca Bradshaw, a respected Buddhist teacher in the Insight Meditation community, offers teachings that are simple yet require us to explore aspects of ourselves that go against much of our social conditioning that values goal-oriented busyness, productivity, independence, outgoing energy, and other ""active"" qualities. When overemphasized, this orientation can cause destructive emotions and behaviors, but we can counter them by embracing more receptive qualities. The receptive or feminine paradigm takes us deeper into the heart of the classical Buddhist teachings, leading to openness and freedom of the heart-mind. Bradshaw illustrates her own resistance to letting go of her strong active orientation with relatable stories, like her efforts to be a perfect meditator. Drawing on our connectedness to nature, she offers guidance for grounded practices, including- useless gazing, getting lost, sense-based reality, practicing in the wildness, accepting uncertainty, and more. These Buddhist teachings are as comforting as they are thought-provoking. Bradshaw's debut book helps us let go and nurture our ability to receive, listen, embrace vulnerability, and just be. Through this process, we heal the imbalances within ourselves and in our relationships to all beings and the natural world.

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9781645473213

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Down to Earth Dharma is an awakening journey into the reclamation of the eclipsed feminine within Buddhism. Rebecca’s gentle, incisive approach, drawing from decades of deep meditation practice, is refreshing, healing, and engaging. Throughout there is a beautifully crafted weaving of a Buddhist worldview and its essential meditative practices with a receptive, intimate approach to life. In a world relentlessly driven by ‘getting to the next thing,’ this book invites us to take our foot off the accelerator and attune to the simple joy of listening more carefully to the heart. It is a vital contribution to rebalancing the ways patriarchal Buddhism tends to prefer transcendence over being rooted and truly ‘Down to Earth.’” —Thanissara, author of Time to Stand Up “With beautiful prose and an open heart, Rebecca Bradshaw guides us on a timeless and timely journey into the heart of what really matters in Buddhist practice. Her message—that we are made real through love and that we find wisdom through nature, the body, and relationship—is a necessary inspiration for those interested in the deep well-being that comes from waking up here and now.” —Devon Hase, coauthor of How Not to Be a Hot Mess “Down to Earth Dharma is a wonderful and engaging exploration of how the feminine archetype can greatly enrich and transform our dharma practice. Rebecca Bradshaw shows with exceptional clarity and warmth how receptivity, intuition, embodiment and relaxation open us more deeply to the classical teachings of the Buddha. She draws on a wealth of experience as a longtime meditator, teacher, therapist, world traveler, and lover of nature as she shares the many stories of her struggles and insights, always highlighting a feminine perspective that has sometimes been lost in the often hard-driving energy here in the West. These are lessons that will be invaluable for us all in these challenging times. Highly recommended.” —Joseph Goldstein, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of Insight Meditation “A much-needed antidote to traditional, patriarchal Buddhist teachings, Down to Earth Dharma is written for us all, whatever our gender. Weaving traditional dharma teachings with personal life stories, a profound relationship with the natural world, over thirty years of teaching experience, and gorgeous nature metaphor, Bradshaw elucidates an embodied feminine paradigm of the dharma—receptive, relaxed, heart-embracing, and relational. Most remarkably, Bradshaw never sacrifices her respect and allegiance to the traditional Buddhist lineage and teachings. Down to Earth Dharma takes us on a much-needed journey into the heart of a feminine spirituality that so many of us—and our Earth—are aching for in these tumultuous times. A spectacular accomplishment!” —Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at UCLA and author of The Little Book of Being “Bradshaw’s emphasis on engagement and our individual connection to the world encourages readers to transmit Buddhist practice through to all aspects of life. She offers healing to the hearts of readers and requests they pass it along to the hearts of others and to the rest of the world.” —Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life “Down to Earth Dharma is a clear, illuminating guide that invites us to engage with the world from a place of embodiment. Rebecca’s insightful book offers practical wisdom and classical and modern teachings that awaken the heart, making the dharma accessible and relevant to all. It encourages living with authenticity and compassion, guiding both new and seasoned practitioners toward a deeper connection with themselves and the world.” —Devin Berry, meditation teacher, youth worker, and cofounder of Deep Time Liberation “Rebecca takes us on a wondrous journey through the landscape of a mind in practice. She uses artistry, storytelling and playfulness to explain age-old practices in detail. If I were new to meditation, I would feel confident in understanding basic principles that would get me on my way with a joy and curiosity that she invites us into. And for a more seasoned meditator, this book helps remind us of the expansive possibilities that an Insight Practice has to offer. It is a very creative yet in-depth exploration.” —JoAnna Hardy, lecturer, meditation teacher, and cofounder of Meditation Coalition “Down to Earth Dharma is an important book—whether you’re just beginning a meditation practice or you’ve been meditating for decades. Rebecca clearly and beautifully articulates the importance of balancing vigorous effort with the yin, feminine, or receptive qualities of awareness. These qualities are too often undervalued in mainstream mindfulness and Buddhist teachings—let alone mainstream Western culture. Within this frame, Rebecca also seamlessly weaves in wisdom from her deep connection with the natural world. I highly recommend this book!” —Jessica Morey, founder of Inward Bound Mindfulness

Author Information

REBECCA BRADSHAW is Guiding Teacher Emeritus of the Insight Meditation Society and the Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley in Easthampton, Massachusetts. She has been practicing Buddhist Vipassana meditation since 1983 in the United States and Myanmar and teaching since 1993. She completed her dharma teacher training at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, where she is part of the three-month retreat teacher team and leads retreats for young adults. Bradshaw has a master's degree in counseling psychology and has worked as a mental health counselor.

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