The power of compassion or the power of the rhetoric

A Report on the Fourth International Conference on Buddhist Women.

While the hill council elections in Ladakh made the headlines, the summer of 1995 also saw in Leh the Fourth International Conference on Buddhist Women, under the aegis of Sakyadhita, an international organisation of Buddhist women founded in 1986 by Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Opened with much pomp and ceremony, the conference soon got down to business, that of stimulating discussion among Buddhist women from many different traditions and nationalities.

The conference boasted a wide range of speakers from all over Buddhist Asia, as well as Europe and North America. The diverse topics addressed included establishing a lineage of female teachers; life among Burmese, Ladakhi, Zangskari and Nepali men; prostitution in Thailand; empowering strategies for women in the Netherlands; Tibetan women in exile; as well as the question of why there were no female geshes in traditional Tibet.

Although topics and paper styles ranged widely, three key themes kept cropping up in the discussions: education of Buddhist women, difficulties faced by Buddhist women today, and the appropriation of the Asian Buddhist experience by Western Buddhists.

The (Burmese) nuns derive their status from association with the monks and from the part they play in enabling the monks to separate from the worldly. Therefore, equality and independence may not be an attractive proposition for them, but rather threatening and confusing to their basic sense of religious identity… – Hiroko Kawanami in "Buddhist Nuns in Transition: The Case of Burmese Thil A-Shin."

Many Western and Asian women spoke with urgency for improved education for Buddhist nuns and laywomen in a rapidly modernising world. Hiroko Kawanami, however, cautioned that such changes might be detrimental to the very community that was supposed to benefit. Kawanami pointed out that it is not enough to recommend improved education; one must also consider how these 'improvements' would change the status of the participating women. Unless there were concrete plans for new social roles, and a correspondingly flexible society that accepted women in new positions, the changes introduced may be disastrous at worst, or ineffectual at best. Kawanami noted that since Burmese nuns serve as invaluable mediators between monks and lay people, an education that 'frees' them of this status simultaneously deprives them of their critical niche in that society.

This point directly challenged Ven. Lekshe Tsomo's view that Buddhism must adapt itself to the changing times to remain popular and viable in Asian as well as in Western societies. Since the focus of Lekshe's paper was on making Buddhism attractive for young Asians, it touched only briefly on how rapidly changing Asian societies might find new roles for revamped Buddhist nunneries.

One Ladakhi nun, Jamyang Palmo, stressed the need for nunnery reforms, but provided few suggestions for the religious roles of nuns in the future. Ani Palmo noted: "Evolution of a well-considered socio-economic and monastic educational plan for the nuns seems to be the crying need of the hour…" Yet, her pleas for the uplifting of Ladakhi nuns rang somewhat hollow, given the strange silence of Ladakhi women throughout much of the conference, with the exception of the renowned physician Dr. Lhadrol Khalon.

The same could not be said for Ladakhi men: Dr. Tsering Norbu, Tashi Rabgyas, Lobsang Tsewang and Jamyang Gyaltsan, all contributed to the debate on how to "uplift" the status of women in Ladakh. Seeing these men, eloquent as they were, propound upon the situation of Ladakhi women, while the well-educated and mellifluous Ladakhi women who had organised the conference sat at the back, was disheartening.

Of course, one might consider from the contribution of the Ladakhi men that the issue of women's education has at last achieved a level of awareness, which means that action might actually be taken. As Ani Palmo pointed out, the move towards educating and modernising Ladakhi nuns will need the wholehearted support of the Ladakhi Buddhist Association (LBA), as well as the All-Ladakh Gompa Association. Interestingly, neither the newly elected head of the LBA, nor Stogldan Rimpoche, head of the Gompa Association had concrete suggestions to offer for modernising the roles of nuns in Ladakh.

In fact, the Stogldan Rimpoche seemed more concerned about preserving his own order of Mahayanism than helping nuns effect social change. At the ground-breaking ceremony for a new Mahabodhi Nunnery, Rimpoche mentioned the need to preserve Ladakh's ancient religious lineages (i.e., Mahayana), thereby implying that Mahayana traditions be included in Mahabodhi's Theravada education curriculum.

Buddhist women are casting off traditional and outmoded restraints to dedicate themselves to implementing and promoting Buddhist practice… Remembering the kind influence of my own mother, I pray that women working for inner peace, and through that peace in the world, may be blessed with success. – Message from the Dalai Lama

While the Dalai Lama optimistically offered his words of wisdom, many speakers repeated tales of woe concerning Buddhist women today. C, Kabilisingh from Thammasat University in Thailand presented a controversial paper on Thai Buddhism and prostitution, which was welcomed for its unflinching portrayal of the darker side of one Buddhist society.

Ani Palmo's paper lamented the fact that Ladakhi nuns were at present "no better than household maid servants," while K Devendra spoke passionately about the loss of the Bhikunni (nun) order in Sri Lanka, and the difficulties encountered in efforts to reintroduce it. She noted that the present-day order of Bhikkus (monks) in Sri Lanka was reintroduced from Burma and Thailand by Dutch and British trading ships only two centuries ago; the leaders in this order were fiercely opposed to the resurrection of a sister order of nuns.

She also referred to her current research into the deadly eight Garudhamma vows, which the Buddha supposedly gave to the first nuns. In fact, these could be shown to be "later interpolations by Brahmin misogynists," Devendra said.

The founder of Ladakh's Mahabodhi Centre and its recently proposed nunnery, Ven. Sanghasena, speaking on women's rights, stated that Buddhist women "generally live their lives with a compartmentalised mind," dividing their time between the temple, the home and the supermarket. He concluded that "this gives rise to much tension and conflict in life," but failed to point out that Buddhist men may face the same tensions. This writer has observed that monasteries have more difficulty in balancing their 'worldly' obligations (collecting taxes, running shops, hiring water carriers) with 'otherworldly' spiritual pursuits than nunneries do, simply because the monasteries have more wealth to manage. "It appears that very few Buddhist Western women want to describe what they see in contemporary Eastern women's realities, because it challenges their faith in Western Buddhism's egalitarian potential." -S. Schneiderman, "Appropriate Treasure? Self-Reflections on Women, Buddhism, and Cross-Cultural Exchange."

An issue that lay at the heart of the conference, but which barely drew a murmur of discussion from the audience, was the question of Western women's appropriation of the Eastern Buddhist practice. The dialogue between two very different experiences of Buddhism, the Western and the Eastern, is problematic in light of the imperialistic and orientalistic strategies that have accompanied Western knowledge in the past and present.

Schneiderman's paper, while provocative, had its shortcomings. It began by reifying the divide between Western and Asian women to avoid an essentialism that assumes all women have solidarity based on gender alone.

However, by stressing the divide between Eastern and Western Buddhist women, Schneiderman overlooked the cross-cutting identities of many women today. There are Asian women who live and teach in the West, Western women who live in the East, and many other women who occupy the imaginary community stretching from Zangskar to Cambridge, Canberra to Calcutta. Some of these women may reject the 'strategic essentialism' of Gayatri Spivak and other feminists, while others might applaud the gender solidarity efforts to assist the struggles of Asian women.

Schneiderman's talk also demands comment in other respects. She noted that "our contemporary Eastern Buddhist sisters remain at worst mute, at best anomalous participants in what, from one perspective, can be seen as a primarily male-dominated religious power structure." In direct challenge to Schneiderman's allegation, the conference boasted several Asian Buddhist women, who were eloquent proponents of feminism in their respective Buddhist traditions. The nuns and laywomen from Burma, Nepal, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Ladakh, and Bhutan who spoke at the conference are neither mute nor anomalous, nor are their Buddhist traditions as male-dominated as Western feminists initially might assume. Although Schneiderman warned against patronising Western attitudes that presume to 'know' Asian Buddhist women's experience, her own paper came perilously close to such a stance.

The dialogue between Asian and Western Buddhist experiences will be more fruitful if each side truly makes an effort to understand the other's tradition, before coming to conclusions. Lekshe Tsomo, who has lived and practiced Buddhism for years, in both Asian and Western contexts, had some interesting advice. She noted that Asian Buddhist leaders might learn something from the trials teachers face in adapting Buddhism in Western post-industrial societies. While Asian Buddhists are not stumbling over each other to tell Western Buddhists how best to spread the Dharma, Westerners often take their appreciation of Buddhism a step too far and become back-seat drivers in the Buddhist chariot.

Thankfully, these Western 'friends of the Dharma' were few and far between at the conference, as was the attempt to 'speak for' Asian women. There were so many speaking for themselves at the conference already.

While, one might have expected more debate about these central issues, the torpid audience seemed content to bask in silent appreciation or (perhaps?) bored resignation. Perhaps a wider and more diverse audience might have boosted participation. While the speakers came from over 14 countries, and over 100 nuns from a variety of Buddhist traditions were present, the audience turnout was somewhat disappointing. The result was a conference in which speakers addressed an already converted audience.

However, the organisers must be commended for bringing so many Buddhist traditions under one roof. In the discussion groups, a free-flowing dialogue between Buddhist women of different traditions did emerge, which alone made the conference worthwhile.

To sit in a circle with Sri Lankan matriarchs, Zangskari nuns, and a Ladakhi nurse, discussing the question of whether motherhood or celibacy offered a better chance to learn the true meaning of compassion, was a fascinating experience.