An enlightened feminist

Her picture is taken in front of the Mahadodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, a sleepy village in north-east India, the place, they say, where Buddha attained enlightenment beneath a sacred Bodhi Tree. Joan Ewing, the daughter of a newspaper publisher from New England is standing still - her long hair set in braids tied with gold and yellow silk. Less than an hour after this picture is taken, Ewing’s braids are sliced at the roots and wrapped in a piece of white cotton cloth.

In January 1970, in a hotel room in Bodh Gaya, Ewing became among the first American women to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. She was renamed Karma Tsultrim Chodron and housed on, in Nepal - a room so small that she could sit in the middle and touch all walls at once.