Monastic Women Leaders Say Poignant poems leave a record of what were on monastic women leaders' minds, how they make their hearts their new homes and their heartfelt expressions of seeing things as they really are. What they say sometime in the fifth century B.C. was documented as a collection of 73 poems two centuries later in the third century B.C. In this Therigatha collection, the Buddhist nuns or bikkhunis shared their inner struggles and triumphs on their path to enlightened wisdom. Note 1: Here is a sampling translated from the Pali by Bhikku Thanissaro. On what it meant to be truly liberated: So freed! So thoroughly freed am I! from three crooked things set free: from mortar, pestle, & crooked old husband. Having uprooted the craving that leads to becoming, I'm set free from aging & death. Therigatha, I.11 - Mutta On What Really Matters Inspite of Aging Physical Beauty: Black was my hair — the color of bees — & curled at the tips; with age, it lo