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A Bigger Sky: Awakening a Fierce Feminine Buddhism
Reimagining Buddhism through a feminine A powerful memoir of healing, strength, and spiritual awakening.
Written by the first and only layperson to receive full dharma transmission in the Suzuki Roshi Soto Zen lineage, A Bigger Sky explores what it means to traverse the gaps of a Buddhism created by and for men, navigate the seemingly contradictory domains of secular and spiritual life, and walk a path through the heart of the world. Blending memoir, Buddhist practice, and cultural observation, Weiss reorients Buddhism through a wider and more inclusive feminine lens. Her personal and spiritual journey speaks to the bits of brokenness in us all, shining a light on the different pathways we can walk to become whole.
Through beautifully crafted prose, Weiss shares what it means to be an ordinary Bodhisattva, describing how the Buddha's profound vision of freedom can be lived outside of institutions and rule-bound practice to support us in deepening our connection with ourselves, each other, and the planet. A Bigger Sky illuminates how integrating a more feminine approach to Buddhist teachings can be applied in spiritual practice, community, relationships, and day-to-day life.
Written by the first and only layperson to receive full dharma transmission in the Suzuki Roshi Soto Zen lineage, A Bigger Sky explores what it means to traverse the gaps of a Buddhism created by and for men, navigate the seemingly contradictory domains of secular and spiritual life, and walk a path through the heart of the world. Blending memoir, Buddhist practice, and cultural observation, Weiss reorients Buddhism through a wider and more inclusive feminine lens. Her personal and spiritual journey speaks to the bits of brokenness in us all, shining a light on the different pathways we can walk to become whole.
Through beautifully crafted prose, Weiss shares what it means to be an ordinary Bodhisattva, describing how the Buddha's profound vision of freedom can be lived outside of institutions and rule-bound practice to support us in deepening our connection with ourselves, each other, and the planet. A Bigger Sky illuminates how integrating a more feminine approach to Buddhist teachings can be applied in spiritual practice, community, relationships, and day-to-day life.
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 14, 2020
24 people are currently reading
203 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Weiss
1 book4 followersI'm a Buddhist teacher in two traditions—Zen and Theravada. After living as a monastic at Tassajara Zen Mountain monastery, I completed teacher training with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock, where I am on the Teacher Council and co-lead the Community Dharma Leader Program. I'm also an executive coach and pioneer in bringing the principles and practices of mindfulness to the workplace.
Here's a bit of backstory about how all of that came about...
As a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut or a pop star. I had a keen curiosity and a deep yearning to explore the edges of the known. I also loved putting on my mom’s cast off dresses and high heels and belting out show tunes with a hairbrush-microphone in hand.
When I was ten, I was diagnosed with diabetes. Living with a chronic illness forced me into the nitty-gritty: counting grams of carbohydrates; titrating insulin syringes; carrying lifesavers in my pocket in case my blood sugar dropped. My body became a battlefield, with clear lines drawn between me and it.
After graduating from Wesleyan University with High Honors, I landed a job at a health care consulting firm where I sat behind a desk in a grey cubicle, crunched numbers and wrote reports. Although I had all of the outward signs of success, I quickly became disheartened and world-weary. Having a job and a paycheck did not satisfy my need to understand the world or help me make peace with being embodied.
In 1987, I knocked on the door of San Francisco Zen Center to learn meditation. I was greeted by a bald man in a long black gown. I found the place odd. But I was moved by the simple honesty, presence and kindness of the people there. “Whatever it is they’ve got, that’s what I want,” I remember thinking.
So I quit my job and lived for five years at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara, sitting many (many) long hours in meditation, dicing vegetables, pulling weeds and scrubbing toilets. During that time, I received lay ordination and took Bodhisattva vows. A Bodhisattva is someone dedicated to waking up for the benefit of all beings. Bodhisattvas understand that we are part of an intimate web of inter-being; that no one of us can be free unless all of us are free; that our well-being as humans is intricately tied to the health and well-being of the planet.
When I left Zen Center, I carried my vows with me into the world, where they have permeated and informed everything I do. I’ve done my best to articulate the heart of the Bodhisattva spirit in accessible, down-to-earth language, and to offer clear principles and practices that address the pressing issues and concerns of our time: racism and oppression; climate change; rampant stress; and the longing for meaningful engagement.
Here's a bit of backstory about how all of that came about...
As a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut or a pop star. I had a keen curiosity and a deep yearning to explore the edges of the known. I also loved putting on my mom’s cast off dresses and high heels and belting out show tunes with a hairbrush-microphone in hand.
When I was ten, I was diagnosed with diabetes. Living with a chronic illness forced me into the nitty-gritty: counting grams of carbohydrates; titrating insulin syringes; carrying lifesavers in my pocket in case my blood sugar dropped. My body became a battlefield, with clear lines drawn between me and it.
After graduating from Wesleyan University with High Honors, I landed a job at a health care consulting firm where I sat behind a desk in a grey cubicle, crunched numbers and wrote reports. Although I had all of the outward signs of success, I quickly became disheartened and world-weary. Having a job and a paycheck did not satisfy my need to understand the world or help me make peace with being embodied.
In 1987, I knocked on the door of San Francisco Zen Center to learn meditation. I was greeted by a bald man in a long black gown. I found the place odd. But I was moved by the simple honesty, presence and kindness of the people there. “Whatever it is they’ve got, that’s what I want,” I remember thinking.
So I quit my job and lived for five years at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara, sitting many (many) long hours in meditation, dicing vegetables, pulling weeds and scrubbing toilets. During that time, I received lay ordination and took Bodhisattva vows. A Bodhisattva is someone dedicated to waking up for the benefit of all beings. Bodhisattvas understand that we are part of an intimate web of inter-being; that no one of us can be free unless all of us are free; that our well-being as humans is intricately tied to the health and well-being of the planet.
When I left Zen Center, I carried my vows with me into the world, where they have permeated and informed everything I do. I’ve done my best to articulate the heart of the Bodhisattva spirit in accessible, down-to-earth language, and to offer clear principles and practices that address the pressing issues and concerns of our time: racism and oppression; climate change; rampant stress; and the longing for meaningful engagement.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 20, 2021
The first part of this book was a wonderfully honest and open account of the author's spiritual journey, which I found both interesting and relatable. The second part was looking at the often missing aspect of the feminine in a lot of Buddhist history and thought including a look at the lives of women in the life of the historical Buddha. The author argues that the feminine needs to be more integrated into the spiritual path as a balance to the "hero's journey" type of mythos. I wholeheartedly agree.
September 1, 2020
If one of the great perils any author must face in writing a memoir is an excessive preoccupation with one’s self and one’s accomplishments, how very much more perilous must this literary genre be for a Buddhist author. For what could be more at odds with Buddhism’s entreaty to embrace “non-self” than writing a book about yourself and your accomplishments?
In this, her first published book, longtime Buddhist practitioner and teacher Pamela Weiss dispatches this peril with ease. While she permits herself to occupy center stage in the autobiographical portions of the book, the author repeatedly steps back from the spotlight, segueing effortlessly between telling us about her own personal experiences and telling us what she’s learned (and what we can learn) from those experiences. Weiss transmits this learning skillfully in various ways: astute social commentary, detailed descriptions of Zen and vipassana meditation retreats, informative accounts of Buddhist history and its core teachings, and insightful suggestions on how to use those teachings in the service of living a more meaningful life of engagement with others (which is to say, living under her title’s “bigger sky”).
This metaphorical bigger sky looms larger as we progress through each of the three sections of this thoughtfully constructed memoir. In the first, “Love Yourself Completely”, we walk under a fairly small sky, keeping close to the author and bearing witness as she finds her way out of a troubling illness-ridden adolescence and young adulthood, and into her first retreat-based encounters with Zen. These very moving chapters draw us right in, not just as observers to Weiss’ unfolding journey, but as friends eager to accompany her on the rest of her trip.
Then, in the second section, “Winning People’s Hearts”, the sky begins to expand significantly. Here we come across a chapter entitled “Ordinary Bodhisattvas”, which strikes me as the very heart of this book. Weiss tells us that “a bodhisattva is a wise, feeling being, someone awake enough to understand the truth of our deep connectedness”; someone whose life is “fueled by the aspiration to alleviate suffering brought about by ignorance, oppression, and injustice.” She then explains how certain key Buddhist teachings have guided her in finding her way onto this path of the ordinary bodhisattva – by learning to listen to the world’s cries of suffering, and by turning towards them rather than away from them.
A truly inspirational chapter, and one which flows naturally into two successive chapters that detail two vastly different episodes in her post-monastic life: the origins and development of her extraordinarily successful Personal Excellence Program (“PEP”) executive coaching seminars, followed by the exquisitely heart-wrenching account of her year of tending to her husband Eugene’s slow and challenging recuperation after his near-fatal bicycling accident. In the first account, we see Weiss as a skillful instructor; in the second, we see her as a sensitive caregiver; in both, we see her blossoming into the extraordinary “ordinary bodhisattva” she had aspired to become.
Finally, in the book’s third and closing section, “No Part Left Out”, the sky becomes big enough to take in the fullness of Buddhism’s 2,500-year history, including a painful recognition of its patriarchal traditions (with even the historical Buddha himself gently taken to task by Weiss for his mistaken notions in this regard) and a painfully overdue acknowledgment of the contributions women have made to Buddhism throughout its long history. By the end of this revelatory section, and thus the close of book, we are ready for Weiss’s call to “birth a new path” by integrating into our own lives, as well as into the Buddhist traditions, the best of both our masculine and our feminine traits. Only then, she says, will we be able to see not just “a bigger sky”, but “the entire sky”.
By sharing so freely with us her own personal path to becoming an “ordinary bodhisattva”, Weiss has pointed each of us toward finding our own unique path. Which, after reading “A Bigger Sky”, I understand more clearly than ever before as the task that each and every bodhisattva is called upon to undertake.
In this, her first published book, longtime Buddhist practitioner and teacher Pamela Weiss dispatches this peril with ease. While she permits herself to occupy center stage in the autobiographical portions of the book, the author repeatedly steps back from the spotlight, segueing effortlessly between telling us about her own personal experiences and telling us what she’s learned (and what we can learn) from those experiences. Weiss transmits this learning skillfully in various ways: astute social commentary, detailed descriptions of Zen and vipassana meditation retreats, informative accounts of Buddhist history and its core teachings, and insightful suggestions on how to use those teachings in the service of living a more meaningful life of engagement with others (which is to say, living under her title’s “bigger sky”).
This metaphorical bigger sky looms larger as we progress through each of the three sections of this thoughtfully constructed memoir. In the first, “Love Yourself Completely”, we walk under a fairly small sky, keeping close to the author and bearing witness as she finds her way out of a troubling illness-ridden adolescence and young adulthood, and into her first retreat-based encounters with Zen. These very moving chapters draw us right in, not just as observers to Weiss’ unfolding journey, but as friends eager to accompany her on the rest of her trip.
Then, in the second section, “Winning People’s Hearts”, the sky begins to expand significantly. Here we come across a chapter entitled “Ordinary Bodhisattvas”, which strikes me as the very heart of this book. Weiss tells us that “a bodhisattva is a wise, feeling being, someone awake enough to understand the truth of our deep connectedness”; someone whose life is “fueled by the aspiration to alleviate suffering brought about by ignorance, oppression, and injustice.” She then explains how certain key Buddhist teachings have guided her in finding her way onto this path of the ordinary bodhisattva – by learning to listen to the world’s cries of suffering, and by turning towards them rather than away from them.
A truly inspirational chapter, and one which flows naturally into two successive chapters that detail two vastly different episodes in her post-monastic life: the origins and development of her extraordinarily successful Personal Excellence Program (“PEP”) executive coaching seminars, followed by the exquisitely heart-wrenching account of her year of tending to her husband Eugene’s slow and challenging recuperation after his near-fatal bicycling accident. In the first account, we see Weiss as a skillful instructor; in the second, we see her as a sensitive caregiver; in both, we see her blossoming into the extraordinary “ordinary bodhisattva” she had aspired to become.
Finally, in the book’s third and closing section, “No Part Left Out”, the sky becomes big enough to take in the fullness of Buddhism’s 2,500-year history, including a painful recognition of its patriarchal traditions (with even the historical Buddha himself gently taken to task by Weiss for his mistaken notions in this regard) and a painfully overdue acknowledgment of the contributions women have made to Buddhism throughout its long history. By the end of this revelatory section, and thus the close of book, we are ready for Weiss’s call to “birth a new path” by integrating into our own lives, as well as into the Buddhist traditions, the best of both our masculine and our feminine traits. Only then, she says, will we be able to see not just “a bigger sky”, but “the entire sky”.
By sharing so freely with us her own personal path to becoming an “ordinary bodhisattva”, Weiss has pointed each of us toward finding our own unique path. Which, after reading “A Bigger Sky”, I understand more clearly than ever before as the task that each and every bodhisattva is called upon to undertake.
July 18, 2020
I highly recommend this book. I found it deeply moving to learn about the women closely linked to the Buddha who often are only sparingly discussed in texts and practice. Pamela brought these women's stories to life and made space for them to be visible, along with sharing her own journey in practice and life in beautifully written prose. The text cultivates a desire to allow more care for the fierce feminine qualities within us all.
August 11, 2020
This book reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Rilke, “Widening Circles”
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?”
In this book, in the most kind, resolute, honest, and vulnerable tone, my teacher, Pamela Weiss, talks about her journey through her sufferings and her pursuit of enlightenment, as a lifelong student of Dharma, as a woman reawakening her femininity, and as a meditation teacher trying to awaken the feminine qualities in all of us regardless of gender. And her journey looks a lot like a “widening circle” that Rainer Maria Rilke described.
“It’s like we’re all walking around looking at the sky through a straw…Is that the sky we see? Sure it is. Is it the whole sky? Absolutely not. Living within our tiny circle of sky can feel cozy and comfortable. Inside is everything we know: our habits and opinions, our familiar points of view. But at some point, the edges of our straw-circle stop feeling comfortable and start feeling constricting.” (from the book)
Due to her illness since she was 11, she faced the question of life or death early in her life. We all encounter sufferings. It may come in different degrees with different contexts, but no one can avoid sufferings. How we handle sufferings may look different on the surface, yet we mostly try to avoid them. The methods of avoidance vary; numbing by distracting ourselves to other stuff in life (e.g. money, status, power, pleasure, work) or ignoring them by “toughening up” or “solving the problem”.
I’ve deployed both methods many times at different points of my life, too. Yet the doubt grew stronger as I kept either numbing or ignoring my sufferings, and the question “Can there be another way?” started ringing louder.
Reading this book, I found great solace as she brought us into her journey of widening circle from her sufferings. She struggled with her sufferings, too, but learned how to go straight toward it instead of numbing or ignoring them through zen practices. She learned how to be with it, and it wasn’t easy or pretty. She describes how her mind got disrupted and tormented even at the most calm and serene Zen center. Yet she shows how she left each darkest night with newfound love for herself over and over. Each time, her understanding and tending to sufferings widened the circle.
Another big part of this widening circle is reawakening the feminine voice inside herself. She defines femininity not based on gender but based on the qualities that males, females and gender neutrals all have. This is how we understand Yin and Yang in Chinese medicine. Yin represents feminine qualities; soft, dark, cold, wet, introvert, quiet, harmony, etc. Yang represents masculine qualities; rough, bright, warm, dry, extrovert, loud, competition, etc. Yin and Yang are equally necessary in human system with balance. In Chinese medicine, they interpret diseases as a symptom of imbalance between Yin and Yang. Yang cannot exist without Yin and the opposite is true, too.
Yang is not better than Yin but many people think “Yang feels superior”. That’s the unconscious bias in play, which we acquired as part of socialization in the sociocultural context that favored masculine qualities. This unfair treatment toward feminine qualities produced three major unfortunate outcomes: 1) gender discrimination (by associating feminine qualities to women only), 2) establishing social agenda only in masculine framework of competition and winning, and 3) disparaging feminine qualities in all individuals (regardless of gender).
While the social impact from the first two outcomes is damaging, I realized the impact of the third outcome has been especially painful personally. For the first 30+ years of my life, I learned I needed to focus on my masculine qualities only to survive professionally in this highly competitive world. Simply put, I just considered my feminine qualities inferior and never tried to learn more about them or develop them. I got used to see only the half of myself as whole, missing (and suppressing unconsciously) the other half. The sky I have been looking was only the half of the sky.
As Pamela shares her experiences of challenging herself and others by giving the long-overdue spotlight to the feminine qualities in all of us, I felt something that’s been locked up inside of me releasing. I don’t know if I am feeling free as a whole being yet – but I found a way to unlock my whole being simply by setting the other half free. I feel free.
Her journey of widening circle of understanding sufferings and reawakening the feminine values in all of us lead us to find ways to see the bigger sky collectively. I highly recommend reading this book to those who’s been toying with questions like “Is this it? Can there be another way?”.
I feel so grateful for Pamela setting these beautiful words free out of herself and sharing with us her stories. I feel forever grateful for her teaching.
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?”
In this book, in the most kind, resolute, honest, and vulnerable tone, my teacher, Pamela Weiss, talks about her journey through her sufferings and her pursuit of enlightenment, as a lifelong student of Dharma, as a woman reawakening her femininity, and as a meditation teacher trying to awaken the feminine qualities in all of us regardless of gender. And her journey looks a lot like a “widening circle” that Rainer Maria Rilke described.
“It’s like we’re all walking around looking at the sky through a straw…Is that the sky we see? Sure it is. Is it the whole sky? Absolutely not. Living within our tiny circle of sky can feel cozy and comfortable. Inside is everything we know: our habits and opinions, our familiar points of view. But at some point, the edges of our straw-circle stop feeling comfortable and start feeling constricting.” (from the book)
Due to her illness since she was 11, she faced the question of life or death early in her life. We all encounter sufferings. It may come in different degrees with different contexts, but no one can avoid sufferings. How we handle sufferings may look different on the surface, yet we mostly try to avoid them. The methods of avoidance vary; numbing by distracting ourselves to other stuff in life (e.g. money, status, power, pleasure, work) or ignoring them by “toughening up” or “solving the problem”.
I’ve deployed both methods many times at different points of my life, too. Yet the doubt grew stronger as I kept either numbing or ignoring my sufferings, and the question “Can there be another way?” started ringing louder.
Reading this book, I found great solace as she brought us into her journey of widening circle from her sufferings. She struggled with her sufferings, too, but learned how to go straight toward it instead of numbing or ignoring them through zen practices. She learned how to be with it, and it wasn’t easy or pretty. She describes how her mind got disrupted and tormented even at the most calm and serene Zen center. Yet she shows how she left each darkest night with newfound love for herself over and over. Each time, her understanding and tending to sufferings widened the circle.
Another big part of this widening circle is reawakening the feminine voice inside herself. She defines femininity not based on gender but based on the qualities that males, females and gender neutrals all have. This is how we understand Yin and Yang in Chinese medicine. Yin represents feminine qualities; soft, dark, cold, wet, introvert, quiet, harmony, etc. Yang represents masculine qualities; rough, bright, warm, dry, extrovert, loud, competition, etc. Yin and Yang are equally necessary in human system with balance. In Chinese medicine, they interpret diseases as a symptom of imbalance between Yin and Yang. Yang cannot exist without Yin and the opposite is true, too.
Yang is not better than Yin but many people think “Yang feels superior”. That’s the unconscious bias in play, which we acquired as part of socialization in the sociocultural context that favored masculine qualities. This unfair treatment toward feminine qualities produced three major unfortunate outcomes: 1) gender discrimination (by associating feminine qualities to women only), 2) establishing social agenda only in masculine framework of competition and winning, and 3) disparaging feminine qualities in all individuals (regardless of gender).
While the social impact from the first two outcomes is damaging, I realized the impact of the third outcome has been especially painful personally. For the first 30+ years of my life, I learned I needed to focus on my masculine qualities only to survive professionally in this highly competitive world. Simply put, I just considered my feminine qualities inferior and never tried to learn more about them or develop them. I got used to see only the half of myself as whole, missing (and suppressing unconsciously) the other half. The sky I have been looking was only the half of the sky.
As Pamela shares her experiences of challenging herself and others by giving the long-overdue spotlight to the feminine qualities in all of us, I felt something that’s been locked up inside of me releasing. I don’t know if I am feeling free as a whole being yet – but I found a way to unlock my whole being simply by setting the other half free. I feel free.
Her journey of widening circle of understanding sufferings and reawakening the feminine values in all of us lead us to find ways to see the bigger sky collectively. I highly recommend reading this book to those who’s been toying with questions like “Is this it? Can there be another way?”.
I feel so grateful for Pamela setting these beautiful words free out of herself and sharing with us her stories. I feel forever grateful for her teaching.
February 26, 2021
The book I expected this to be was found only in the final 10 or so pages. The unexpected book was delightful. The expected one, then? It kind washed out for me.
December 27, 2024
There were lots of well-written, introspective parts of this book but it felt a bit fragmented. In under 200 pgs, Weiss covers her own memoir, Buddhist feminism, Sumerian myth, and current culture wars about gender and race in America. It was all relatable and at times inspiring, but also didn’t motivate me to read in lengthy sittings since it was presented as isolated anecdotes and lacked a cohesive narrative. I thought the best parts were the excerpts from the Buddha’s sister, mother, and wife. I appreciated Weiss’s story and perspective but would have preferred a book that introduced her thoughts on Buddhist feminism and contextualized/elaborated on the stories of some of the Buddhist women she listed at the end.
December 18, 2020
I really enjoyed this book, which I thought was interesting and extremely well written. However unlike some of the other Goodreads reviews I read, I did not follow the connection among all the sections, which to me felt like three completely different books. But overall it was a great read (or listen in my case), and I particularly enjoyed the stories about the women in the Buddha's life.
July 26, 2020
I’m new to exploring Buddhism and I found this book to be welcoming, wise, warm and illuminating. The author generously shares her own story and offers teachings that are inspiring and also practical and so resonant. I listened to the Audible version and loved it so much that I’m also getting the print copy so I can underline favorite passages and have it in my library. Many thanks to Pamela Weiss! I’d love to read more.
April 4, 2025
Wonderful book for anyone who is beginning to explore Buddhism and meditation. I learned so much, and really appreciated her feminist reinterpretation of several foundational stories of the Buddha's life. I don't feel like I can write a review that comes close to capturing the influence this book has had on my life journey. It took me 1-1/2 years to read it because I read only a page or two every day, in order to think about what she was saying and journal about it. Well worth every moment.
April 24, 2021
Pam Weiss weaves powerful stories from her life and practice with evocations of the women in Buddha's life and insight into the oppression of patriarchy and its impacts on keeping all of us separate and closed, no matter our gender. When any one of us suffers, we all suffer," she writes. A Bigger Sky is infused with clarity, compassion, and wisdom.
January 1, 2021
Read as part of a book group. Gained a lot from both the book and the group.
May 26, 2024
I loved this amazing book and will definitely refer to it and read it more 🥰
July 30, 2025
Didn’t feel invested in the biographical elements of the story but I surprisingly found her corporate training program interesting despite slightly disapproving of it — theres a few SFZC priests here today that also sell secular amoral mindfulness to the big capitalist actors and their cogs, aiding capitalism’s strides to co-opt mindfulness to encourage more productivity and strip meditation of its politically radical roots. Pam seems to lean more towards neoliberal so it was strange and a little empty to be reading about feminism from her.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews