The following open letter was sent to Shambhala Publications on 17 January 2021:
Dear editors,
We have been distressed to see the poems of Matty Weingast falsely marketed by Shambhala as a translation of the Therīgāthā, a sacred Buddhist scripture.
Mr. Weingast’s poetry is sold under the misleading title First Free Women: Poems of early Buddhist nuns. It is not a translation, as Mr. Weingast has acknowledged. And it is not the poems of early Buddhist nuns, as it draws no more than vague inspiration from the Therīgāthā, while almost all the content is the original poetry of Mr. Weingast.
We call on Shambhala to remove this book from publication immediately.
yours,
Bhante Sujato
Bhikkhunī Sudhammā Therī
Dr Gillian Perrett
Deepika Weerakoon
Gopala Radhakrishnan
An Tran (Author of Meditations on the Mother Tongue)
Prof. Michael F Reid
John Kelly
Bodhipaksa (Author of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha)