The Buddha from Brooklyn

About this book

In 1985 Catharine Burroughs was a Maryland housewife with two childrenand two failed marriages behind herrunning a New Age prayer group in her basement. Out of the blue a monastery in India for which she had raised some money contacted Burroughs and asked her to host His Holiness Penor Rinpoche one of the highest-ranking lamas of Tibetan Buddhism on his first visit to America. After meeting Burroughs and observing her and her followers for a period of five days he told her that she was a "great great bodhisattva " and already unbeknownst to her practicing Buddhism. Later in India he officially recognized this Jewish-Italian woman from Brooklyn as the reincarnation of a sixteenth-century Ti-betan saint making her the first American woman to be named a tulku or reborn lama. The Buddha from Brooklyn tells the complex and fascinating story of how Catharine Burroughs now known as Jetsunma Ahkn Lhamo embarked on a journey to build the largest Tibetan Buddhist center in America. With boundless enthusiasm but precious little formal training in Buddhist practices and traditions Jetsunma and her students bought an estate in Poolesville Maryland on the outskirts of Washington D.C. and founded Kunzang Palyul Choling (Fully Awakened Dharma Continent of Absolute Clear Light). Under Jetsunmas tutelage the group memorized sacred texts and held all-night prayer vigils. They asked venerable Tibetan lamas to visit and give them "empowerments." Many took Buddhist vows and became monks and nuns. And as word of this remarkable place spread others came to see the new lama for themselves and joined her community. Martha Sherrill a writer at The Washington Post heard about Jetsunma in 1993. She visited the center and was charmed by both its charismatic lama the only Western woman in the male-dominated hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism and by the monks and nuns (all Americans) living there. They seemed for the most part like a remarkably happy group of people whose lives had been transformed by this exotic imported faithand by Jetsunma. At the beginning of The Buddha from Brooklyn as the group is breaking ground for a sacred monument called a stupa Sherrill commences her own journey to discover for herself what makes this unlikely lamawho enjoys clothes shopping and manicures Motown music and Star Trek rerunssuch a magnetic spiritual leader. And as the story unfolds so do the secrets of this seemingly idyllic sanctuary. Compassionate and clear-eyed Sherrill takes her readers on a breathtaking exploration inside the monastery at Poolesville a place where idealistic but flawed human beings struggle with their devotion every day. She demystifies monastic life and Tibetan Buddhism and amends the simplified view that most Americans have of this 2 500-year-old faith. Weaving together the stories of the believers into a narrative structure that is as moving and beautiful as the stupa they are building Sherrill has created a brilliant work of investigative journalism that raises profound provocative questions about religious faith and its price. The Buddha from Brooklyn is a monument to the miracles and failures that stem from the deepest human longings.