Learning to Walk Softly

This chapter explores how human and insect lifeworlds intersect in a typical day at a Buddhist monastery in rural Taiwan. Rather than focus on how doctrinal ideas about animals shape Buddhist practice, we instead look at how actual insect encounters force the nuns to stretch, challenge, and deepen their embodied moral practice by cultivating skills such as patience, attention, and generosity. We find that these Buddhist practices, though in some cases extreme, offer helpful insights about tolerating difference, finding connection within separation, and accepting risk, vulnerability, and imperfection as necessary for meaningful relationships.