Paula Arai

Paula Kane Robinson Arai is an American professor and Buddhist studies scholar, specializing in the academic study of women and Buddhism, specifically Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism and Japanese Sōtō Zen women. She has also been an active public speaker and led workshops on healing rituals.

Arai, who grew up in Detroit, Michigan, earned her Ph.D. in comparative religion and Japanese Buddhism from Harvard University. While still a student, she began conducting ethnographic and historical research about Japanese Zen nuns, which eventually became her first book, ''Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns'' (1999). She taught courses in Buddhism, Asian religions, and theories of religion at Louisiana State University and is currently a member of the faculty at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is a practitioner of the religious traditions she studies; her work is grounded in ethnographic research and her pedagogical approach "blends a rigorous academic background with a compassionate, embodied, and person-centered approach to teaching". She has been awarded several research grants and teaching honors.

Arai has written four additional books, as well as a long list of journal articles. She published ''Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women's Rituals'' in 2011, in which she studied, the religious and spiritual practices of 12 lay women, whom she called her "consociates", ranging from their 40s to their 70s. in 2019, Arai published ''Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra—The Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo,'' which studies and analyzes the work of Iwasaki Tsuneo (1917-2002), a Japanese biologist and Buddhist artist. in 2022, she co-edited the ''Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice'', and in 2023, she published ''The Little Book of Zen Healing.'' Provided by Wikipedia