The Wild White Goose, Volume II.

Mount Shasta, CA Shasta Abbey, 1978. Paperback First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY AUTHOR. First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. Also signed by the author's Zen student, student Daizui MacPhillamy. Near Fine in Wraps: shows only the most minute indications of use: just a hint of wear to extremities; mildest rubbing. Binding square and secure; text clean. Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 304pp. Shasta Abbey is the Headquarters of the Refomred Soto Zen Church. Denominational Press Paperback. Jiyu-Kennett (1924 – 1996), born Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, was a British roshi most famous for having been the first female to be sanctioned by the Soto School of Japan to teach in the West. As a young woman she found herself questioning gender roles in society and grew to become disillusioned with Christianity. She studied medieval music at Durham University and then received a scholarship to Trinity College of Music in London, England. Though attracted to Buddhism, she felt during this period that she was called to serve the Church of England as a priest. However, church policies at the time did not allow women to be ordained, and this enhanced her previous disillusionment with Christianity. She first became interested in Theravada Buddhism during this period of questioning and searching, joining the London Buddhist Vihara. In 1954 she joined the London Buddhist Society, where she continued her Buddhist studies and lectured. While there, she met the scholar D.T. Suzuki, and developed a strong interest in Zen Buddhism. In 1960 when Keido Chisan Koho of Sojiji in Japan came to the society, she was asked to make the arrangements for his stay. Koho asked if she would consider becoming his student back in Japan. She accepted the offer, and two years passed before she arrived at Sojiji to study under him. In January 1962, Kennett traveled to Malaysia to accept an award she had been honored with for setting a Buddhist hymn, "Welcome Joyous Wesak Day" by Sumangalo, to music. Before leaving for Japan, Kennett was ordained a novice nun by Venerable Seck Kim Seng in the Linji Chan school and given the Buddhist name Jiyu, meaning compassionate friend. Jiyu-Kennett arrived in Japan in 1962. She trained at Sojiji under Keido Chisan Koho Zenji—from whom she received Dharma transmission in 1963. Because Koho was often preoccupied with administrative affairs, Jiyu-Kennett spent much of her time studying under one of Koho Zenji's senior officers, Suigan Yogo roshi. She remained until after the death of her master Koho in 1967. By 1969 she received authorization to begin teaching Soto Zen in London, England. That year, she visited the United States on a lecture tour and decided to remain.[6] At this time Jiyu-Kennett was not in good health, as during her time in Japan she had experienced many illnesses.[7] In 1969 Jiyu-Kennett founded the Zen Mission Society in San Francisco, and in 1970 Shasta Abbey in Mount Shasta, California,[8] the first Soto Zen school in the United States to be established by a woman. In 1972, Jiyu-Kennett's British chapter of the Zen Mission Society established Throssel Hole Priory in Northumberland, England.[3][9] In 1978 Jiyu-Kennett changed the name of the Zen Mission Society to the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. In 1975 Jiyu-Kennett was stricken with illness yet again, and this time she became bedridden. In 1976 she resigned from her position as abbess of Shasta Abbey and went into retreat in Oakland, California. Still rather ill, of unknown causes, she had her student Daizui MacPhillamy with her often to tend to her care. Following a kensho experience he had, she conferred Dharma transmission to him at her bedside in 1976. Not long after she began having visions. Stephen Batchelor describes these episodes, "The visions lasted for 12 months, until 26 January 1977, the first twelve occurring in Oakland, the rest at Shasta, where she returned on 25 October. Each vision unfolded as a dream-like episode, charged with Western and Buddhist religious symbolism, superimposing itself on whatever she saw around her. She compared the series of visions to an elaborated contemporary version of the classical Zen images of the ten 'ox-herding' pictures. By the time the final vision faded, she was cured. She interpreted the experience as that of a 'third kensho"." Jiyu-Kennett had a commanding presence about her, both intellectually as well as physically. Of a rather husky build, she had a tremendous laughter and was known to be gifted at storytelling. To some, her demeanor appeared rather persistent at times, as author James Ishmael Ford writes, "She followed in the authoritarian style of her Japanese inheritance....She had genuine insight into the boundless realm and also pushed me toward my own deepest experience of the great matter." Her adaptation of Zen for Westerners has been likened to Japanese Soto Zen with a flavor of the Church of England, for she believed that Zen in North America should adopt Western monastic dress and liturgical forms. For example, she set the traditional Buddhist liturgy to music based on Gregorian chants. Jiyu-Kennett was an advocate for equality between the sexes, and was herself swayed by the idea that women would never be deemed as equal to men if they were not understood to possess souls. She asserted that no woman will be certain she is equal "until she knows with the certainty that I know, that her own Buddha-nature, or her own soul, exists." The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, founded by Jiyu-Kennett, now has chapters in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, the West Indies, the United Kingdom and Germany. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY AUTHOR.