Dipa Ma was a primary teacher of Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein, who have been among the most influential "importers" of Buddhism to America. Through the centers they founded and the teachers trained in them (the author among them), the example and teaching of Dipa Ma reach multitudes. Jack Kornfield described the power of Ma's influence: "Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a person so developed can be enough to change one's whole way of life."
"Knee Deep in Grace" is filled with intimate stories collected over a period of ten years, not only from prominent meditation teachers in the West but from Dipa Ma's daughter and grandson and her Calcutta students. Dipa Ma addressed her teaching to ordinary people in her apartment complex and her extended family, and her iconoclastic style of daily life "immersion" practice brought many of her students to awakening. And as this book testifies, her old students as well as new ones find that Dipa Ma continues to guide and inspire their meditation practice.