Buddhism is today considered one of the major religions in the world. For a Buddhist to follow the religion, they must follow a certain set of guidelines to achieve a better life, but most people have to deal with other factors along this path. The story, “The Journey of a Buddhist Nun” by Sid Brown, is an account of a Thai woman, Maechi Wabi, who entered a spiritual life amidst life struggles and outside influences. According to Brown, Wabi faced many challenges on the path to liberation and the two challenges she faced the most were gender and socio-economic issues which she overcame during her spiritual journey. Siddhartha Gautama had a luxurious lifestyle provided by his father in the palace, but he was still unhappy with life and wanted to seek an answer. But unlike Siddhartha Gautama, Maechi Wabi had to go through a different phase to renounce all desires in order to find liberation. She came from a poor family and after her father left the family, she had to take care of her siblings, even though Wabi was younger. She even built up a disgusting phase towards men because of her father's actions. Wabi's father left the entire family and gave up all his desires, and as a result, Wabi had a curious thought and confusion as to why he did this (Brown, 18). The author also states that Wabi was not happy with her life and the situation at home due to the suffering and struggle the whole family goes through to survive. Wabi eventually left his family and began a different journey to search for an answer. Although Siddhartha Gautama and Maechi Wabi went through similar phases of leaving home life to find the answers, factors such as gender and so...... middle of paper ......autama a left behind a luxurious life and moved on to gain enlightenment, but Wabi had to abandon his poverty and continued, enduring too much pain and suffering. Wabi's quest to gain a peaceful life somehow consisted of many barriers, but she was able to overcome each of them with courage. and self-motivation. Factors such as gender and socio-economic aspects are not defined in Buddhism because anyone can follow the middle path, but Buddhist elites in the past had established these rules and regulations and they are accepted earlier and now play a huge role in everyone's spiritual life. With the setup of Thai culture, especially for a woman, following a spiritual life requires a lot of effort, and Wabi's story says that to achieve liberation one must develop one's inner being through personal practice, even if the problems are right in front of you. You.