Paula Arai (Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, Harvard University) holds the Eshinni & Kakushinni Chair of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is author of Women Living Zen, Bringing Zen Home, Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra, and The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice. Her current book project is supported by the Lenz Foundation: Of Mud and Lotuses: Stories of Women Liberating Dharma. Arai has received generous support for her pursuits, including from Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation, and the Reischauer Institute of Harvard University. She has curated exhibits of a Japanese scientist’s Heart Sutra paintings at a number of venues around the US. Steeped in ethnographic research, she takes an embodied approach to her work and finds poetic immersive storytelling a potent medium for conveying the experiences of transformative healing she researches. An active public speaker, Arai also leads workshops on healing rituals.
