Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha

“How is it these songs are getting better, stronger, more alive than ever, more necessary than ever… or is it because I just need to hear them more than ever?”—Red Pine

“What a wonderful difference it makes when real poets translate poetry! Schelling’s renderings read like those of an old, wise Zen vagabond. Waldman’s sparkle, crisp and sharp. These verses soar, traversing the expansive reaches of human experience and triumph. Truly, in these two poets’ hands, these songs of the sons and daughters of the Buddha sing.”—Jan Willis, author of Dreaming Me

“These enlightenment songs of the earliest disciples of the Buddha are vibrant, celebratory, and very human. I see my own path reflected in their search, my own highest aspirations reflected in their awakening. This wonderful translation brings these people to life in a way that reminds us that freedom is truly possible.”—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

“These are earthy, courageous translations of the most ancient Buddhist poems. How honest the struggle of these practitioners with death and lust and self-doubt (just like us); how beautiful their moments of release.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

“Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha are songs of enlightenment, and some of them are very well known; but these translations are especially fresh, ballsy, spontaneous, and timeless, and they capture people working genuinely on themselves. I’m so enjoying reading it.”—Richard Gere

ANDREW SCHELLING is a poet and translator. Author of twenty-odd books, his poetry is founded on studies in ecology, linguistics, and folklore, and includes A Possible Bag. Recent translations include Some Unquenchable Desire- Sanskrit Poems of the Buddhist Hermit Bhartrihari and Erotic Love Poems from India. Schelling lives in the Southern Rocky Mountain Eco-Zone; he teaches poetry and Sanskrit at Naropa University.

ANNE WALDMAN is a poet, performer, professor, editor, activist, and founder with Allen Ginsberg of The Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University. Author of over 50 books of poetry, her most recent books include Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet To Be Born, and Trickster Feminism. Her epic The Iovis Trilogy- Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment won the PEN Center USA Award for Poetry. She has received the Shelley Award, a Guggenheim, the Before Columbus Foundation Award for lifetime achievement, and the Houtian Prize from China. Waldman is a Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poetry. She has been a student of Buddhism for many decades. She makes frequent trips to India.

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