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Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns
Women played major roles in the history of Buddhist China, but given the paucity of the remaining records, their voices have all but faded. In Daughters of Emptiness , Beata Grant renders a great service by recovering and translating the enchanting verse - by turns assertive, observant, devout - of forty-eight nuns from sixteen centuries of imperial China. This selection of poems, along with the brief biographical accounts that accompany them, affords readers a glimpse into the extraordinary diversity and sometimes startling richness of these women's lives.
A sample poem for this stunning
The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward,
Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.
Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,
Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.
The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,
Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.
A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,
Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.
Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,
But Spring pays no attention to me at all.
Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,
The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.
How should I not know, one who has left the world,
And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?
In the garden there grows a rosary-plum
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.
- Chan Master Jingnuo
A sample poem for this stunning
The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward,
Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.
Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,
Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.
The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,
Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.
A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,
Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.
Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,
But Spring pays no attention to me at all.
Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,
The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.
How should I not know, one who has left the world,
And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?
In the garden there grows a rosary-plum
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.
- Chan Master Jingnuo
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 18, 2026
The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward,
Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.
Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,
Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.
The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,
Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.
A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,
Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.
Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,
But Spring pays no attention to me at all.
Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,
The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.
How should I not know, one who has left the world,
And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?
In the garden there grows a rosary-plum tree:
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.
—Chan Master Jingnuo
Haiyin. We know very little about Haiyin, apart from the fact that she appears to have lived during the last part of the Tang dynasty and was associated with the Ciguang Convent in what is today Sichuan Province. Hers is the only poem attributed to a Buddhist nun (there are quite a few by Buddhist monks) among the over fifty thousand poems written by some two thousand poets included in the voluminous compendium of Tang poetry, The Complete Poetry of the Tang Dynasty.
The color of the water merges with that of the sky,
The sound of the wind adds to that of the waves.
The traveler’s thoughts of home are painful,
The old fisherman’s dream-self is startled.
Lifting his oars, the clouds get there before him,
When his boat moves, the moon follows along.
Although I’ve done reciting the lines of my poem,
I can still see the hills extending in both directions.
Plum Blossom Nun. Little is known about this poet, but the poem is widely anthologized now.
The entire day I searched for spring but spring I could not find,
In my straw sandals I tramped among the mountain peak clouds.
Home again, smiling, I finger a sprig of fragrant plum blossom;
Spring was right here on these branches in all of its glory!
This is an amazing collection edited and crafted by Beata Grant, a look into women Buddhist poets, long and still neglected. I read a bit of it each day for the last month, in the morning, as a kind of prayer or spiritual guide. Reading the poems and reading what Grant is able to find about the poets as individual writers is its own form of meditation, in solitude.
I will not give a detailed review of this wonderful book, but instead I encourage you to get this book, at the very least from your library.
Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.
Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,
Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.
The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,
Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.
A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,
Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.
Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,
But Spring pays no attention to me at all.
Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,
The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.
How should I not know, one who has left the world,
And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?
In the garden there grows a rosary-plum tree:
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.
—Chan Master Jingnuo
Haiyin. We know very little about Haiyin, apart from the fact that she appears to have lived during the last part of the Tang dynasty and was associated with the Ciguang Convent in what is today Sichuan Province. Hers is the only poem attributed to a Buddhist nun (there are quite a few by Buddhist monks) among the over fifty thousand poems written by some two thousand poets included in the voluminous compendium of Tang poetry, The Complete Poetry of the Tang Dynasty.
The color of the water merges with that of the sky,
The sound of the wind adds to that of the waves.
The traveler’s thoughts of home are painful,
The old fisherman’s dream-self is startled.
Lifting his oars, the clouds get there before him,
When his boat moves, the moon follows along.
Although I’ve done reciting the lines of my poem,
I can still see the hills extending in both directions.
Plum Blossom Nun. Little is known about this poet, but the poem is widely anthologized now.
The entire day I searched for spring but spring I could not find,
In my straw sandals I tramped among the mountain peak clouds.
Home again, smiling, I finger a sprig of fragrant plum blossom;
Spring was right here on these branches in all of its glory!
This is an amazing collection edited and crafted by Beata Grant, a look into women Buddhist poets, long and still neglected. I read a bit of it each day for the last month, in the morning, as a kind of prayer or spiritual guide. Reading the poems and reading what Grant is able to find about the poets as individual writers is its own form of meditation, in solitude.
I will not give a detailed review of this wonderful book, but instead I encourage you to get this book, at the very least from your library.
March 10, 2018
Unable To Sleep Because Of A Cold
My whole body burns with fever, I cannot keep from coughing,
Rising, I sit, my robes pulled about me; my breath slowly clears.
As I emerge from a state of samadhi the hourglass has run out;
All I hear is the sound of neighbors' dogs barking in the town.
- Yikui
This is a collection of poems from 48 Chinese Buddhist nuns, from the time of Six Dynasties (when the earliest mention of nuns in China appear) to the 20th century - the persons are divided into groups according to each period. There is a bio for each nun and at least one poem (more likely so in the older end); the text is in both Chinese and English. There is no doubt that there were many more poems out there, but many are lost, and being lost was more likely when it was a nun writing.
The nuns often appear to have been educated and literate already before becoming nuns, intelligent and practicing some Buddhist things (like vegetarianism and reading texts). Some joined when young, some only after marriage/parents died. A few knew each other (for example, those who knew nun Shenyi, around the middle of the book).
The poems are of various lengths, many including nature imagery along with Buddhist themes... but even if you don't have much interest in Buddhism itself, the poems still shine. The book is just the right length, and doesn't feel long. It does make you want to travel some more, and perhaps want to seek out more poetry from this time. A good treasure of a book that anyone interested even slightly in should get :)
Traveling In The Mountains
My bramblewood stick cuts through the woods, stirs up fallen reds,
Suddenly I hear the clear sound of chimes carried by the autumn breeze.
I'm just that if I come again, I won't know how to find this place,
So I try to fix in my mind that solitary old pine hanging from the cliff.
- Ziyong
My whole body burns with fever, I cannot keep from coughing,
Rising, I sit, my robes pulled about me; my breath slowly clears.
As I emerge from a state of samadhi the hourglass has run out;
All I hear is the sound of neighbors' dogs barking in the town.
- Yikui
This is a collection of poems from 48 Chinese Buddhist nuns, from the time of Six Dynasties (when the earliest mention of nuns in China appear) to the 20th century - the persons are divided into groups according to each period. There is a bio for each nun and at least one poem (more likely so in the older end); the text is in both Chinese and English. There is no doubt that there were many more poems out there, but many are lost, and being lost was more likely when it was a nun writing.
The nuns often appear to have been educated and literate already before becoming nuns, intelligent and practicing some Buddhist things (like vegetarianism and reading texts). Some joined when young, some only after marriage/parents died. A few knew each other (for example, those who knew nun Shenyi, around the middle of the book).
The poems are of various lengths, many including nature imagery along with Buddhist themes... but even if you don't have much interest in Buddhism itself, the poems still shine. The book is just the right length, and doesn't feel long. It does make you want to travel some more, and perhaps want to seek out more poetry from this time. A good treasure of a book that anyone interested even slightly in should get :)
Traveling In The Mountains
My bramblewood stick cuts through the woods, stirs up fallen reds,
Suddenly I hear the clear sound of chimes carried by the autumn breeze.
I'm just that if I come again, I won't know how to find this place,
So I try to fix in my mind that solitary old pine hanging from the cliff.
- Ziyong
June 12, 2020
Extraordinary collection of verse from Chinese nuns - a rare collection spanning many centuries. As we get into the late 19th and 20th c, the selections move from Chan (Zen) to Pure Land. Short biographies are provided on all the nuns. Inspiring-
August 6, 2020
A Self-Description
Above the highest peak of Mount Wu, the
round moon is alone,
Cold and bland, pure and poor, it does not
possess a single thing.
If someone should come along and ask what
this nun is doing,
She sits for long hours on her meditation mat
enjoying herself.
Drop off the body: the river of the world will
never end,
Stately and grand: nothing to show but the
inner master.
When morning comes, change the water, light
the incense,
Everything is in the ordinary affairs of the
everyday world.
*
March 11, 2014
Great book to show the female voice of Buddhism and it's history
Read
November 26, 2025I admire the work put into making this book happen. All this work - the research, the digging of historical records, the academic labour and of course, the translation itself. I genuinely admire Beata Grant.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting with this book. I thought I'll be reading the usual type of poetry anthology. This wasn't quite the case. There are numerous women included here and every single of them has a page or two of their biography. Then a poem of theirs, or a few of them - and then everything begins anew. I appreciate that I learned so much. But all the biographical information took me out of the poetry - which was what I originally signed up for. And it's not something you can skip, because you'd need to skip almost half of the book. But I also didn't want to? It *was* interesting. Just all this shifting between prose and poetry, prose and poetry, really didn't work for me. There were cases where for a nun were included quite a few poems - these were the cases that I could immerse better. But these were rare moments.
All in all, a challenging read. You're required concentration to understand the poems, otherwise everything goes over your head. I appreciate all the context given, as at times it was crucial to understand the meaning of the poem. It also reallyyyyy got me in the mood to read a Chinese novel.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting with this book. I thought I'll be reading the usual type of poetry anthology. This wasn't quite the case. There are numerous women included here and every single of them has a page or two of their biography. Then a poem of theirs, or a few of them - and then everything begins anew. I appreciate that I learned so much. But all the biographical information took me out of the poetry - which was what I originally signed up for. And it's not something you can skip, because you'd need to skip almost half of the book. But I also didn't want to? It *was* interesting. Just all this shifting between prose and poetry, prose and poetry, really didn't work for me. There were cases where for a nun were included quite a few poems - these were the cases that I could immerse better. But these were rare moments.
All in all, a challenging read. You're required concentration to understand the poems, otherwise everything goes over your head. I appreciate all the context given, as at times it was crucial to understand the meaning of the poem. It also reallyyyyy got me in the mood to read a Chinese novel.
February 21, 2018
When I found this the local library, I borrowed due to how oddly specific it was. Turned out to be a neat collection of peaceful poems written by Chinese Buddhist nuns. After finishing, I am now thoroughly convinced about my future hermitage.
July 15, 2025
This volume contains about 50 poems by Chinese Buddhist Nuns from 220 to 1911. So much war and strife didn't deter these women from their calling—quite a collection of thought-provoking poetry.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews