Bhavacakra: Tibetan, Wheel of Life

Robina Courtin in an excerpt from an interview by Michaela Haas:

Michaela Haas: How did your parents react when you first wanted to be a Buddhist nun?

Robina Courtin: My mother had to go through quite a bit before then. When I gave up God for boys, she cried. When I went to London in the late 60s and gave up my classical singing studies for involvement in the radical left, she cried. Then I got into black politics, and she cried. Then I became a radical lesbian separatist feminist, and she really, really cried. So by the time I told her I wanted to become a Buddhist nun when I was 31, she didn’t have any tears left. But she always came around: so kind.

MH: I am intrigued how you could go from being such a political and radical person to not being interested in these topics anymore at all.

RC: I’m just the same radical person. I’m radically working on my own mind. Not believing in the way things appear to us: you can’t get more radical than that. How women are treated in Buddhism, full ordination for nuns, whatever – all of these issues are important. But I want to look at the internal component, not the external. I want to uproot the causes of all suffering, which are mental. In that, I am more radical than ever.