prajnaparamita: mother of all buddhas

a woman well set free

"at last free,
at last I am a woman free!
no more tied to the kitchen,
stained amid the stained pots,
no more bound to the husband
who thought me less
than the shade he wove with his hands.
no more anger, no more hunger,
i sit now in the shade of my own tree.
meditating thus, i am happy, serene."

by: sumangalamata - 6th century b.c.

(she was a member of the earliest community of buddha's followers. many of these women left accounts of their practice in poems, which were then collected in a volume known as "therigatha: verses of the nuns." these songs of the sisters have served over the centuries as a powerful correction to any mistaken notion that the buddha's teachings were/are somehow only effective for men.)