Pamela Weiss - A Bigger Sky: Awakening a Fierce Feminine Buddhism

Straddling the quiet depths of Zen and the dynamism of corporate America, suddenly thrown into the crucible of her husbands devastating accident and many months of constant caregiving, Pamela Weiss undergoes a mysterious transformation into wholeness. A Bigger Sky takes the reader on a profound, groundbreaking, and totally engaging journey of awakening and healing.

Bringing into vivid everyday life the model of the bodhisattva, she teaches us that nothing is outside of our spiritual practice and lays out the secret of how alchemy happens and true transformation takes root. She reveals a path of profound surrender, embodiment, and engagement with the world. In a time torn apart by patriarchal psychopathy, this book is a lions roar to bring us back to our senses.

Kittisaro & Thanissara, coauthors of Listening to the Heart: A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism

A Bigger Sky beautifully illuminates the power of the strong feminine and its essential role for us all in personal and planetary healing. In the process, Pamela Weiss shines an unflinching and much-needed light on the misogyny that has characterized the traditions history and presents a contemporary way of integrating the masculine and feminine into a more complete spiritual path.

Frank Osteseski, author of The Five Invitations

This is a wise, beautiful book. Pamela tells her story with complete transparency, describing the long journey she took to give herself the same compassion that she has gifted so many others. As I was reading, I felt myself soften to the original source so lucidly described in her writing. You will, too.

Allison Post, coauthor of The Gut Wellness Guide

A beautiful and courageous book for those new to the world of meditation and for those seeking a fuller expression of how the path can unfold. Genuine, heartfelt, and deeply inspiring.

Matty Weingast, author of The First Free Women

In Pamela Weisss beautifully written and heartfelt new book, she seamlessly weaves a variety of threads: her life story, a feminist take on Buddhist teachings, ancient myth, and hard-won wisdom from her spiritual path. Put together she creates a fascinating synthesis of pressing spiritual topics and personal discovery.

Diana Winston, author of The Little Book of Being and director of Mindfulness Education at UCLAs Mindful Awareness Research Center

In A Bigger Sky, Buddhist teacher Pamela Weiss gives us an intimate account of her spiritual journey, honestly sharing both the rough waters and the wonderful, sustaining parts of the path. The profound wisdom gained is woven through her account, giving readers the benefit of her rigorous dedication. I highly recommend this engrossing account for anyone on a spiritual path.

Lama Palden Drolma, author of Love on Every Breath: The Power of Tonglen Meditation in Daily Life and founder of Sukhasiddhi Foundation

Pamela Weiss beautifully articulates the archetype of the human journey. But more than that, she expresses her own lived experience through journeys into Buddhist teachings, career, relationship, and identity, as well as the joys and sorrows of the only life we have to live.

Larry Yang, author of Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

A Bigger Sky offers a vision of an American Buddhism that has worked through its psychological and sociocultural bypasses. First, it articulates an embodied feminine approach to awakening as a corrective to hyper-masculine transcendent narratives. Second, in confronting the structural affliction of racism, it signals a shift from individual to collective liberation. Practitioners who are birthing more inclusive and integrated forms of American Buddhism will find much inspiration here.

Ann Gleig, author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity

Brilliantly and engagingly written, Pamela Weiss's personal journey through decades of Buddhist practice is a must-read for anyone interested in a contemporary spirituality as it unfoldsin the workplace, in the face of debilitating illness, in the midst of race and gender issues, and in the ongoing dynamic between personal love and spiritual vocation. A Bigger Sky is nothing short of an inspiration, especially for women seeking to challenge the status quo of religious orthodoxy.

Roger Housden, author of the best-selling Ten Poems to Change Your Life series and Dropping the Struggle: Seven Ways to Love the Life You Have

With ruthless honesty, Pamela Weiss leads us through her lifes journeyas a child with chronic illness, a devoted young Zen monk, a loving wife, a successful business woman, and always a deeply human being. Her yearning to awaken never leaves her, and with fierce persistence and love she transforms the obstacles on her path into the path itself. There are deep teachings in heredive in!

Bhikkhuni Anandabodhi, cofounder of Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery and coauthor of Leaving it all Behind

Pamelas lovely memoir is as full of wisdom as it is well written. Her spiritual journey takes us into uncharted territory, offering the intimations of a feminine approach to Buddhism. In its outlines, we begin to feel a sorely needed balance being restored.

Sandra Maitri, author of The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram and The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues

With engaging, intimate prose, Pamela Weiss illuminates how we can move through a world of increasing complexity while maintaining our values and aspirations. With deftness and insight, she challenges the relevance of androcentrism in Buddhism and gives voice to key female Buddhist figures. A Bigger Sky will benefit those who want to learn more about Buddhism as well as those struggling with its patriarchal origins.

Sebene Selassie, teacher and writer

Pioneers are those who venture into unknown territory and settle. In A Bigger Sky, Pamela Weiss marries the settling teachings of Buddhism with the unsettling truth of systemic inequality. Weaving stories of wise womensuch as the Buddhas wife and Inanna of the ancient Sumerian mythWeiss invites us to reflect on the universal process of descent, recovery, and restoration needed on the path of awakening, and inspires us to transcend the narrow definitions that have silenced women since antiquity. This book is heart medicine for our times!

Sarah Powers, author of Insight Yoga

Brave and inspiring. I am grateful to Pamela Weiss for taking me along as she shows how her suffering enabled her to fully engage with Buddhist practice, and how her Buddhist practice enables her to fully meet her suffering. I cheer her on as she finds her voice and her strength, and when I look up from these pages, I realize that she is the one who has cheered me on and given me courage.

Susan Moon, author of This is Getting Old and coauthor of What is Zen?

Pamelas writing is rich with wisdom, clarity, and heart. Her insights about her unique journey as a female practitioner in Buddhism and how she learns to integrate the jewels of Buddhist teachings in contemporary culture are illuminating. I highly recommend this new and insightful work that brings a fresh feminine perspective to ancient wisdom teachings.

Mark Coleman, author of From Suffering to Peace

A Bigger Sky is a wise, moving, exquisitely crafted book. It describes a path of intimacy that winds its way along the mountain roads of Zen practice, through lifelong illness, social histories, and awakenings to justice. Pamela Weiss shares stories of ancestral and contemporary women whose wisdom is pivotal to the relevance of the Buddhist tradition and the way to freedom for all beings. This is essential reading for Buddhists everywhere.