Product Description

Washington Post reporter Martha Sherrill takes us on one of the strangest and most entertaining spiritual journeys in the history of American religion in this tale of a big-haired, much-divorced Brooklyn-born Jewish-Italian woman who finds herself recognized as the reincarnation of a seventeenth-century Tibetan Buddhist lama.

When Catharine Burroughs takes on the mantle of a living Buddha and becomes Jetsunma Ahkon Lhama, she commits herself to the creation of the largest Tibetan Buddhist center in America and inspires her disciples to all night prayer vigils and monastic vows. She also indulges her passion for shopping, develops a hair-care product as a way to raise funds, seduces male and female devotees, and divorces another husband. As Martha Sherrill delves into the passions and practice of Jetsunma and her followers, she explores the practices of Tibetan Buddhism and its uneasy fit in the West and reveals how difficult it is to be truly spiritual in America today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1235623 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-24
• Released on: 2001-04-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Amazon.com
Buddha from Brooklyn begins like the biographies Crooked Cucumber and Cave in the Snow--a venerated Buddhist teacher from humble beginnings is surrounded by respectable Western students. Unlike the seasoned masters Shunryu Suzuki and Tenzin Palmo, however, Jetsumna Ahkon Lhamo, the red-headed woman from Brooklyn who wore a black leather jacket and stick-on nails, had no Buddhist training. And still she had managed to build up the largest monastery of Tibetan Buddhists in America. Martha Sherrill, a journalist for The Washington Post, introduces us to Jetsumna's monastery outside Washington, D.C., and to the world of Tibetan Buddhism. With a measured hand, she unfolds the life of Jetsumna and her acolytes, revealing the unshakable devotion, the enormous sums of cash, the ostracism, and the mysterious magnetism of the highest-ranked woman in Tibetan Buddhism. Jetsumna joined the illustrious ranks of Tibetan lamas after being discovered to be an enlightened reincarnation by the same lama who would later discover Steven Seagal. As Sherrill learns, Jetsumna did appear to be enlightened, and her students believed in her infallibility. They became model Tibetan Buddhists, doing prostrations, building stupas, saving all sentient beings. So why did the group occasionally seem like a cult? In a narrative of complexity and sensitivity, Sherrill struggles with the answers to this and other doubts even while she is attracted to the religion herself but troubled by its embodiment in this stretch of wilderness outside America's capital. --Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly
Catharine Burroughs was a spiritual leader with a small following in Maryland when she was officially recognized in 1987 as the tulku, or reincarnation, of one of the founders of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma sect's Palyul tradition. Sherrill, a Washington Post writer since 1989, interviewed Burroughs and many of her students. This multiplicity of voices makes for a rich, compelling portrait of Burroughs's spiritual journey, one that Sherrill aptly describes as having a "Star Is Born" quality. Burroughs is a complex figure, warm and down-to-earth, charismatic and intensely attentive to her students' needs, yet also distant, inaccessible and sometimes manipulative. Sherrill presents these apparent contradictions in a way that is balanced and compassionate, yet honest. This book, however, is not just about Burroughs; it is Burroughs's impact on her students' lives, both positive and negative, that surprises here, even more than the seeming anomaly of an American becoming a part of the Tibetan Buddhist incarnation tradition. Burroughs displays a remarkable ability to form and continually re-inspire her community, but this leads some students to see her as a living Buddha, a claim not many Tibetan teachers would make. Sherrill's work raises questions about how important one charismatic figure should be in a religious community, whether it is Buddhist or of some other faith, but she leaves the reader with no easy answers. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Profiles of prominent people have been journalist Sherrill's specialty, but nothing prepared her for the confounding world of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. Born Alyce Zeoli, Jetsunma survived a miserable Brooklyn childhood, married, had children, and then experienced a breakdown during which her spiritual powers became manifest. With no religious training, she opened a prayer center and came to the attention of a Tibetan Buddhist lama who informed her that not only was she teaching Buddhism but she was a reincarnation of a seventeenth-century saint. Jetsunma then established the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple and monastery in the U.S., but she herself was never ordained, and her methods were unorthodox. Jetsunma took male and female disciples as consorts; favored big hair, big nails, and black leather; and amassed a considerable fortune. As Sherrill carefully separates legitimate spirituality from fraudulent practices, dharma from greed, she confronts the spiritual hunger that induces some Westerners to romanticize Buddhism. Ultimately, this mesmerizing portrait reveals that Jetsunma is as much an invention of her followers as she is of her own ego. Donna Seaman