Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self Book

Not sure whether to give this three or four stars. I feel quite ambivalent about it, though I am very glad to have read it and it has much to commend it. As has happened before, I have picked up a book with one set of expectations, but found myself reading another. I wanted grounded academic analysis - and indeed I did receive this from Klein's book - but I also received a kind of theological work, threaded through with passionate 'right' beliefs and meditation practices. Perhaps it only felt so evangelical to me because I stand outside the system. Perhaps to a Western woman who is seeking carefully considered wisdom about her practice of Tibetan buddhism, it would have hit the spot very well. My criticism is not to say it is not a very important and useful piece of work. It was fascinating learning about Yeshe Tsogyal, and engaging in a dialogue between a particular kind of buddhist, and essentialist and postmodern feminist writers whose work is familiar to me. I just found myself occasionally wishing for a little less conviction about things, and a bit more precision about some of the terms used and representations and arguments offered. I have only lived in South East Asia for two and a bit years, but I know how difficult it is to generalise about what it might mean to be buddhist.

I found this review at academic room.com, which made me nod and say 'yes, yes, yes', several times: