Books by Sandy

Hidden Spring

Discovering Kwan Yin

Opening the Lotus

Turning the Wheel

Heartwomen

In the great movement of Buddhism to the West, Ruth Denison has been a pioneer. The first Buddhist teacher to lead an all-women’s retreat and the first teacher to use movement and dance to train her students in mindfulness, Denison created a quintessentially female, body-centered way of teaching the Dharma.

One of the first meditation instructors at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, she has taught extensively in the United States and Europe for thirty years, helping to establish meditation centers in Canada, Germany, and California. She still teaches at her own center in the Mojave Desert of California.

(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2005. hardcover, $25.95 ISBN: 0-8070-7318-0)

** Read a chapter now! Download the Portable Document Format (PDF) file (227 kb). For help, go to end of page.

Available at your local bookstore and at amazon.com.

“Ruth is one of our most amazing Buddhist elders, whose vision has helped plant the Dharma in the West. And this is her story, compellingly and beautifully told.” -- Jack Kornfield, co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society, and author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

Catching the unique charm of Denison’s voice in vivid scenes and anecdotes, Sandy Boucher tells the gripping story of Ruth’s youth in Nazi-dominated Germany and her struggle to survive the near-fatal abuses and privations that befell her after the War. After immigrating to California, Ruth met and married Henry Denison, a spiritual seeker and Vedanta devotee. Through the sixties and seventies they were active participants in the explorations of the counterculture, hosting parties attended by luminaries like Alan Watts, Aldous and Laura Huxley, and Timothy Leary, and traveling to Asia and Europe to study with the major spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. All this became a rich fertilizer for Ruth’s later flowering as a Buddhist teacher in the eighties and nineties, which Boucher examines from Ruth’s first hesitant setting forth, through the choppy waters of controversy, to her ripening into a mature, wise, and yet always unpredictable teacher.

As she tells Ruth’s story, Boucher ponders how to continue to learn from a spiritual teacher while responding to that teacher’s complex personality. "What was it about Ruth and myself that drew me back, year after year," she wonders, "to sit and move and dance with her, even when I could so clearly see her failings?" And with this question she opens up a new chapter in the chronicles of American Buddhism, telling the story of a student drawn to a unique and powerful teacher without becoming a mere acolyte. Or put another way: without desiring her to be something other than complexly, contradictorily, human.

“I fell in love with Ruth as I devoured this wonderful biography. Boucher has created a magnificent portrait&mdash not flinching from what is difficult, carefully explaining the layers of Ruth’s character and history. It’s one hundred percent recognizable and deeply revealing of the writer as much as her subject.” -- Kate Wheeler, author of Not Where I Started From

“This book is a tonic to lift the spirits and energize the heart. Here Buddhist teachings shine through the journey of a remarkable, lovable woman. I treasure this liberating example of how the student-teacher relationship can be freed from the deadening effects of guru worship.” -- Joanna Macy, author of Widening Circles

“Ruth Denison is a rare and powerful woman who is one of the pioneers of Buddhism in the West. Her life, her words, her art, her very essence have been gathered and beautifully expressed in this marvelous book that is full of wisdom and adventure.” -- Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center, and author of The Fruitful Darkness

“Dancing in the Dharma tells the remarkable life story of one of Western Buddhism’s early pioneers. The unique, colorful, and gracious qualities of Ruth Denison as a person and of her teaching style shine in this compelling biography.” -- Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of Insight Meditation Society and author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience